Jimmy's Stars is Ellie's story. It's the story about her love for her brother, Jimmy, and her unwillingness to let him go to war. He's drafted, despite her feelings about the matter. The story follows her, as she learns to deal with his absence and the fear that he'll never return.

I loved this book.

For many reasons.

I loved the character. She was sweet, real, honest, ornery—at times, and heartbreakingly in love with her brother. She dragged me into her life so I rejoiced in her joys and grieved in her losses.

I also loved the setting. The historical details made the world real, so I lost myself while reading. I could see and hear and feel everything that Ellie saw and heard and felt.

But most of all, I loved this book because it made me think about love, and life. I had to think about war, and sacrifice, and friendship, and prejudice, and evil, and heroism. It's a book with no preaching. It offers a view of war through the eyes of girl who doesn't have any answers. She only has wants.

Ellie learns that her wants don't change the cold realities of the world, but in the end, she also learns that her wants aren't necessarily needs. That it's possible to live without getting all the things we want and it's even possible to rejoice when we've lost things we hold dear.

Don't buy this book, looking for a rip-roaring plot. It's simply not there. There's a compelling plot. We can guess, pretty early on, that there will be pain involved. We can guess that Jimmy isn't going to come home in the same state he left. Will he die? Will he be injured? We prepare for the worst and hope for the best. And that tension—preparedness against hope—compels us to read on. But Jimmy's Stars is not a war book, full of battles and cliffhanging action. It's a quiet, thought provoking book about a girl learning to look for a higher good in a world where what we see is often not fair or good.

I highly recommend this book for all ages, and for homeschoolers, and for families to read and discuss together.

---more reviews Home

Copyright © 2008 Sally Apokedak