As a boy, Franklin Roosevelt spent summers at the family “cottage” on Campobello Island, nestled in the waters off Maine and New Brunswick. There he made the acquaintance of Tomah Joseph, a former chief of the Passamaquoddy tribe who made his living in later life as a guide. Vignettes imagine Tomah Joseph teaching the future president how to paddle a canoe, showing him how to gather sweetgrass for a basket, telling him stories and, when Roosevelt was a young man, giving him a birchbark canoe (which now rests on display at the Roosevelt Campobello International Park museum and inspired this book). Passamaquoddy historian Soctomah and co-author Flahive present a text-heavy series of incidents rather than an actual story, emphasizing the imagined relationship but providing little narrative oomph. The result is a pleasant interlude with little for young readers to hold onto for later. Owens’s soft watercolors depict the scenes with warmth but do not provide any real visual dynamism. Without question well-meaning and potentially useful in Native American curricula but hard to work with in isolation. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-88448-300-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2009
Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0792-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
Keena Ford’s second-grade class is taking a field trip to the United States Capitol. This good-hearted girl works hard to behave, but her impulsive decisions have a way of backfiring, no matter how hard she tries to do the right thing. In this second book in a series, Keena cuts off one of her braids and later causes a congressman to fall down the stairs. The first-person journal format is a stretch—most second graders can barely write, let alone tell every detail of three days of her life. Children will wonder how Keena can cut one of her “two thick braids” all the way off by pretend-snipping in the air. They will be further confused because the cover art clearly shows Keena with a completely different hairdo on the field trip than the one described. Though a strong African-American heroine is most welcome in chapter books and Keena and her family are likable and realistic, this series needs more polish before Keena writes about her next month in school. (Fiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3264-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2009
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