Lost Cause

September 1, 2012
Posthumous messages and tantalizing clues send a teenager from Canada to Barcelona in search of a hidden chapter from his beloved grandfather's past. One of a septet of simultaneously published novels, all by different authors and featuring cousins who are each left a mission or task in their shared grandfather's will, this takes Steve to Spain, where he discovers that his elder relative was a member of the International Brigades. He is guided by his grandfather's old journal and also by Laia, an attractive young resident of the city who lectures him on the Spanish Civil War while taking him to several local memorial sites. Steve slowly gains insight into how it felt to believe passionately in a cause--even, in this case, a doomed one--and then to lose that innocent certainty in the blood and shock of war. The storyline is, though, at best only thin glue for a series of infodumps, and readers will get a stronger, more specific view of that conflict's drama and course from William Loren Katz's Lincoln Brigade: A Pictorial History (1989). A tale driven by its informational purpose, with only a short story's worth of plot. (map and family tree, not seen) (Fiction. 11-13)

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February 1, 2013

Gr 7 Up-These stories begin with the reading of David McLean's will. In it, he gives a task to his grandsons. In Last Message, Adam is sent to France to right a great wrong David had committed and was too ashamed to do himself. In Lost Cause, Steve is to go to Spain to learn about a part of David's past that he has kept secret from his entire family. As a teenager, he fought against the Fascists in Spain. While there he fell in love with a woman he could not find the strength to see again and was nearly killed in battle. Both books cover different periods in history, World War II in Southern France and the Spanish Civil War. The teens learn about history and their grandfather. The plots move along quickly and are not bogged down with historical information, but Last Message is a little far-fetched at points.-Erik Carlson, White Plains Public Library, NY

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