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Summary
Summary
From acclaimed British sensation Mal Peet comes a masterful story of adventure, love, secrets, and betrayal in time of war, both past and present.
When her grandfather dies, Tamar inherits a box containing a series of clues and coded messages. Out of the past, another Tamar emerges, a man involved in the terrifying world of resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Holland half a century before. His story is one of passionate love, jealousy, and tragedy set against the daily fear and casual horror of the Second World War -- and unraveling it is about to transform Tamar's life forever.
Author Notes
Mal Peet was born in 1947. Before becoming a children's author, he worked as a teacher and for educational publishers. His first novel, Keeper, won the Branford Boase award and Nestle Children's Book Award. He also won the Carnegie Medal in 2006 for Tamar and the Guardian children's fiction prize in 2009 for Exposure. He co-authored a series of children's books with his wife Elspeth Graham. His first novel for adults, The Murdstone Trilogy, was published in 2014. He died from cancer on March 2, 2015 at the age of 67.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (7)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Peet's (Keeper) novel employs separate narrative threads to track the grief of a teen puzzling out her grandfather's suicide, and the same man's youth in Holland during WWII, where he and another Dutchman worked with the British to repel the Nazi occupation. Both men have code names and fake passports: Tamar's charge is to repair the fractured local resistance movement; Dart runs the wireless, sending and receiving encrypted messages. Fear of capture constantly stalks each, but Tamar is quartered on the site of a previous missionAa farm owned by Marijke, his beautiful lover. Dart is posing as a doctor at a nearby insane asylum, staying alert for late-night transmissions by popping Benzedrine. As winter sets in, so do hunger and desperation. It becomes less clear who the enemy is, as the locals resist Tamar's leadership, and Dart misunderstands Marijke's feelings for him and her relationship with Tamar. Only one man returns to England after the warAand it is his granddaughter, also named Tamar, who receives a box of effects following his death. She then undertakes a journey to understand the box's mysterious contents. Identity confusion is a topic near and dear to teenage hearts, but Peet doesn't introduce the younger Tamar until 100 pages in, and doesn't develop her story nearly as well as her grandfather's. Comparisons to Aidan Chambers's Postcards From No Man's Land are inevitableAreaders who savored it may also take to this complex tale about how war casualties can keep accruing, generations after the battle ends. Ages 14-up. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) Readers might think they've wandered into Ken Follett territory for this novel, winner of Britain's Carnegie Medal, about wartime heroism, treachery, and romance. After a brief prologue set in 1979, the story turns to 1944, when two Dutch nationals turned British agents, code-named Dart and Tamar, are parachuted into Nazi-occupied Holland to marshal the Resistance and prepare for the forthcoming Allied offensive. The men are housed and protected by the beautiful Marijke, who is also, secretly, Tamar's lover. As wartime dramas go, this is satisfying genre fiction; it's only when the book introduces a YA slant one hundred pages in that things become a bit awkward. We meet, in interpolated sections set in 1995, Dart and Marijke's English granddaughter, also named Tamar, who has been prompted by her grandfather's suicide to investigate the true story of her name. Dart, a cryptographer, left behind clues for Tamar to follow, but most readers will be firmly ahead of her in solving the mystery. While occasionally purple (""he wanted very much to share the secrets of Marijke Maarten's night-black eyes""), the writing is dramatic, and the covert Resistance activities are suspenseful and rich with the details of undercover warfare. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
It was her taciturn but beloved grandfather, William Hyde, who gave Tamar her strange name. But in 1995, when she was 15, he committed suicide, leaving her to wonder if she knew him at all. Later, when she opens the box of War II memorabilia that he left her, she's struck by the need to find out what it means, who he really was, and where she fits in. Tension mounts incrementally in an intricate wrapping of wartime drama and secrecy, in which Tamar finds her namesake and herself. Forming the backbone of the novel are intense, sometimes brutal events in a small Dutch town in Nazi-occupied Holland and the relationship between the girl's namesake, a member of the Dutch Resistance; Dart, a code operator assigned to help him; and Marijke, the love of his life. Peet's plot is tightly constructed, and striking, descriptive language, full of metaphor, grounds the story. Most of the characters are adults here, and to some readers, the Dutch history, though deftly woven through the story, will seem remote. But Peet's sturdy, emotionally resonant characterizations and dramatic backdrop will pull readers forward, as will the secret that gradually unravels. Despite foreshadowing, the outcome is still a stunner. Winner of Britain's 2005 Carnegie Medal, this powerful story will grow richer with each reading. --Stephanie Zvirin Copyright 2007 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THIS book is adorable, original, well-illustrated and fabulous. Between the title, which perfectly sums up the tone and content of the book, and the foregoing sentence, there's really nothing else you need to know. If I were you, I'd jot down the title so you can check it out later, skip the rest of this review and get on with the book section and/or your day. If, however, you insist on reading on - which I assure you will involve more or less a reiteration of the above but with a few additional 25-cent adjectives - then here you go. Sally Lloyd-Jones and Sue Heap created this book in such a way that it feels as though the concept, story and approach were all ripe and whole somewhere in idea space, just waiting to be plucked, and they were the ones who grabbed it. The story begins with the infinitely wise guru of an older sister announcing, "When you're a baby, you are in a crib and not in school." This wonderfully abrupt and confident opening sets the stage perfectly: big sister knows everything in the universe, big sister is doing new baby/us an incredible favor by imparting all this wisdom, and new baby is (at least for now) not so much a person as he is an audience. The how-to manual covers a wide range of topics including "real clothes" versus pajamas, reading, food, fears, baths, manners, friends and sleep, to name a few. Talking: "You talk, but no one knows what you're saying, because you just make it all up." Singing: "You don't know the words. Or the tune. (I know the words and the tune AND THE DANCE.)" Car seats: "You don't even face the right way. (I prefer to sit in a seat like a normal person.)" There are supplementary "what else" lists throughout the book, like "Here's What Else You Can't Do" and "Here's What Toys You Don't Have and You're Not Allowed to Play With." One of the last such lists - "Here's What Else Babies Are Good At" - cues the book's emotional shift, and the final eight pages celebrate siblinghood while still keeping it real (i.e., maybe you're not so bad after all, and I wish you well as long as you don't surpass me). Sue Heap's illustrations complement the text in just the right way, and I can't imagine it looking any other way. In other words, this book is adorable, original, well-illustrated and fabulous. Amy Krouse Rosenthal is the author of "Little Pea," "Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons" and, published this month, "The OK Book."
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-This lengthy Carnegie Medal-winning novel is masterfully crafted, written in cinematic prose, and peopled by well-drawn, multidimensional characters. Intense and riveting, it is a mystery, a tale of passion, and a drama about resistance fighters in the Netherlands during World War II. The story unfolds in parallel narratives, most told by an omniscient narrator describing the resistance struggle, and fewer chapters as a narrative told by 15-year-old Tamar, the granddaughter of one of the resistance fighters. The locale and time shift between Holland in 1944 and '45 and England in 1995. The constant dangers faced by the resistance fighters as well as their determination to succeed in liberating their country from German occupation come vividly to life. Dart, Tamar, and Marijke are the main characters in this part of the book. Their loyalty to one another and the movement is palpable though love and jealousy gradually enter the story and painfully change the dynamics. Other characters jeopardize the safety of the group and intensify the life-threatening hazards they face. Peet deftly handles the developing intrigue that totally focuses readers. After her beloved grandfather commits suicide, modern-day Tamar is determined to undercover the mystery contained in a box of seemingly unrelated objects that he has left for her. Peet keeps the story going back and forth in time, and readers must wait till the end of this intricate book to understand fully what happened to these courageous people. This is an extraordinary, gripping novel.-Renee Steinberg, formerly at Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In 1944, Dart and Tamar, code names for two undercover operatives for Britain's Special Operations Executive, parachute into Holland to reorganize the Dutch resistance movement. In 1955, a 15-year-old British girl named Tamar receives a box from her grandfather who has committed suicide. In it are clues to her grandfather's past and her own identity, but she must go on a journey to make sense of the clues. In Peet's Carnegie Medal-winning work, he tells the interwoven stories of Tamar the spy and Tamar the teenager in beautifully visualized episodes. Meticulously crafted scenes develop this long, complex and elegant work that is both a historical novel and a reflection on history--how a young girl's life has been shaped by a past she never knew. Readers will be torn: They'll want to slow down and savor the gorgeously detailed prose, but speed up to find out what happens next. Simply superb. (notes, acknowledgments) (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Tamar's strange name was given to her by her grandfather. Searching for the reason behind his suicide, she uncovers the story of three Dutch resistance operatives-Dart, Marijke, and Tamar (her namesake?). While fighting to defeat their Nazi occupiers in World War II, the three fell into a tragic romantic triangle, with generational repercussions. Is there anything sexier than doomed resistance fighters in love? For fans of Casablanca (starring Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, 1942). Why It Is for Us: This book's wartime setting, flawed characters, and complex narrative structure make for an incredibly satisfying read. [The hardcover was published in 2007.] (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.