Real Time
Grade 7 Up–This surprisingly slim volume is an exhausting but illuminating read that will provide much-needed insight into life in modern Israel. Kass ably communicates the internal as well as external lives, histories, and observations of a diverse cast of characters, including a naive, conflicted Palestinian youth who believes his heroic suicide will mean glory and financial stability for his family; a guilt-ridden German teenager who needs to know what sins his grandfather may have committed during World War II; a young Israeli kibbutznik escaping the demons she left behind in Russia; and an old, embittered Holocaust survivor who heals himself by making things grow. Readers follow these and other individuals hour by hour as three of them board a bus that is bombed en route to Kibbutz Broshim, near Jerusalem. The climactic explosion occurs mid-book; the remainder is devoted to the aftermath, as survivors and their loved ones attempt to put back together their shattered lives. The reading experience is immediate, and the characters are deeply developed and painfully sympathetic as they find that they are inextricably and unexpectedly connected to one another.–Mary R. Hofmann, Rivera Middle School, Merced, CACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.