A Master Plan for Rescue

August 10, 2015
In Newman's quaint yet sprawling historical drama, the lives of a young boy and a Jewish émigré intersect to form an unlikely partnership. Twelve-year-old Jack is suddenly stricken by near-blindness at the exact moment he hears Pearl Harbor has been attacked. When he later witnesses his father's deadly fall into an oncoming subway train, Jack's overwhelming grief compels him to create a magical parallel reality in which performing a patriotic act of valor will redeem his father's love, if not bring his father back. After hearing Nazi saboteurs have come ashore in New York, Jack follows and confronts Jakob, who emerges from beneath the subway car he's repairing to share his story of romance, loss, and eventual escape from Berlin. Within this magically conceived universe they collaborate on a "master plan" to steal the saboteurs' submarine and rescue 23 Jewish children. Featured historical events include Kristallnact (The Night of Broken Glass) and the trans-Atlantic voyage of the S.S. St. Louis (a cruise ship turned troubled refugee vessel). Newman showcases an intricate, expertly woven plot, but the persistent over-explanation of metaphorically significant moments becomes tedious. Nevertheless, a boy processing grief through a reimagining of history is an ultimately affirming tale.

May 1, 2015
Burdened by guilt about his father's accidental death, a 12-year-old New York boy develops fantasies that will only be dispelled after he helps a refugee from Nazi Germany save a group of desperate Jewish children. First, Jack Quinlan loses his normal vision on the day the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, and then he loses his father under a subway train. These events and Jack's fantastical imaginings that his father might have survived the accident drive the opening and most successful section of Newman's (Mary: Mrs A. Lincoln, 2006) second novel. Several characters have special abilities, and Jack's is to "see" the radio, i.e. to picture in extraordinary detail the worlds of the programs he listens to. But after his father dies, Jack's imaginative leaps extend to the world outside his home, and soon he's playing truant from school, looking for Nazi spies on the streets of the city. He thinks he's found one, but the man, Jakob, turns out to be a Jew from Berlin. Jakob's story of political turmoil, hopeless love for Rebecca-a fellow Jew with an incurable heart complaint-and perilous escape from Germany to New York, without official papers, marks the novel's shift into more predictable, sentimental territory. But there's more. Now Jack and Jakob join forces, and the story switches gears again, into an episode of derring-do involving the rescue of some two dozen children fleeing France by submarine, assisted by Jakob's mechanical brilliance and Jack's street savvy and school pals. Overfreighted with symbolic motifs-sight; messages; hearts; photographs-and juggling love, loss, magical gifts, and profound pain, Newman's story speeds up yet thins out in its efforts to deliver charm and resolution. An initially appealing, increasingly strenuous assault on the heart strings.

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June 1, 2015
Jack is 12 years old, cripplingly nearsighted, and desperately trying to deny his father's death. He invents an elaborate scenario in which his father did not die but has gone undercover to hunt Nazis in New York City. Armed with a Captain Midnight decoder ring, Jack roams the streets of New York at night, searching for Nazis and his father. He follows Jakob, whom he believes to be a spy, only to find out that he is Jewish and trying to help get 23 children out of a refugee camp in France. Myopic Jack; his deaf friend, Rose; and Albie, with the bad heart, devise a daring plan that they must carry out on their own. A Master Plan for Rescue tells several stories: a young boy coming to terms with bullying and death; a mother's inability to deal with grief; a man haunted by the woman he left behind; and so on. And all these stories are told with insight and an almost-magical belief in possibilities.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)