Tamar

by Mal Peet

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781406339130
Publisher:	Walker & Company
Publication date:	01/28/2012
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Mal Peet (1947–2015) is the acclaimed author of the Carnegie Medal–winning novel Tamar as well as the Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book Life: An Exploded Diagram and three Paul Faustino novels: Keeper, The Penalty, and Exposure, a winner of the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. He is also the co-author of Cloud Tea Monkeys, Mysterious Traveler, and Night Sky Dragons, all of which he wrote with his wife, Elspeth Graham.

Read an Excerpt

Tamar had not been able to drift clear of the surface of the water that rushed up to meet him. He was already fumbling with the harness release when he felt the cold shock of contact; he was terrified the chute would drag him under. He was thigh deep before he felt something more or less solid — a mass of sludge and submerged branches — beneath his feet. With a moan of relief he got free of the chute and saw it settle onto the black water like a gigantic water lily. Then he began to struggle towards the denser shadow of the bank. His flailing right arm struck something hard, and he grabbed at it. It shifted in the water. A boat? Yes.

He was pulling himself along it, looking for where it must be moored to the bank, when he heard someone speak.

"Welcome to Holland, Tamar."

He looked up. On the bank, distinct against the lesser darkness of the sky, was the unmistakable silhouette of a German soldier. The long field-service coat, the jackboots. Cold moonlight glinted from the steel helmet and the snout of a submachine gun.

Even before fear took hold, Tamar was filled with a great and bitter disappointment, a sense of ridiculous failure. He stood away from the boat, feeling broken, and raised his arms above his head.

_______

Editorial Reviews

Gr 9 Up

Mal Peet's Carnegie Medal-winning novel (Candlewick, 2007) deftly weaves suspense and painful emotion with story strands set in World War II Holland and late 20th century England. When her grandfather commits suicide, 15-year-old Tamar is left an odd collection of objects that lead her to Devon, site of her namesake river. Accompanied by a her cousin, and the two young people uncover the dark family secret that began in the Dutch countryside during the waning days of the Nazi occupation. That thread of the story involves two Dutch Resistance fighters in love with the same woman. Brutal reprisals by German troops increase the friction among Resistance factions and add to conflicts between the two espionage agents, once best friends. The story not only follows a determined teen through her anger, loss, and betrayal, but it also echoes those themes in the ravaged landscape of wartime Holland. Narrators Anton Lesser and Anna Maxwell Martin keep the tension palpable and convey the tale's complex human dilemmas. Peet describes the intensity of love and the struggle to survive physical and mental hardships with compelling imagery. Students can easily draw parallels between this conflict and contemporary issues and identify with the title character's search for self. A gripping, well-crafted audiobook for high school and public library collections.-Barbara Wysocki, Cora J. Belden Library, Rocky Hill, CT

School Library Journal

Simply superb.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

This powerful story will grow richer with each reading.
—Booklist (starred review)

An extraordinary, gripping novel.
—School Library Journal (starred review)

A considerable original achievement.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

From the Publisher

Dual voices recount the separate lives and times of two characters named Tamar. In clipped tones Anton Lesser describes the lives of two British agents, Dart and Tamar, who are air-dropped into occupied Holland during WWII. Tamar is charged with uniting resistance groups, and Dart communicates with England. Lesser's even delivery contrasts with the passions of these two men and the turbulent emotions of the Nazis and the local Dutch. Interspersed with Lesser's readings are those of Anna Martin, who tells the story of the second Tamar, Dart's 15-year-old granddaughter, who lives in England in 1995. In distressed tones, Martin portrays Tamar’s confusion and hurt at her beloved grandfather's suicide and his puzzling past. The two narratives complement each other, and give the novel dramatic unity. S.W. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2009 - AudioFile