In a gracefully cadenced text with telling echoes of ideas and images, an apparently autobiographical story: when Jane is four, she and her family see Daddy off on a crowded troopship to WW II; only Mama cries. Soon after, on a forbidden trip to wade in the nearby Chesapeake, Jane's five-year-old cousin Michael demonstrates that the small-looking ships they see are actually big, like Daddy's—Michael moves away while Jane compares his size to her own hand. Two years later, Daddy comes home. "Everyone cried, except Mama," and Janie tells him why she seems bigger: ". . .you were so far away, Daddy. When you are far away, everything is smaller. But now you are here, so I am big." In her best work to date, Baker's watercolors capture the nuances of affection, loss, puzzlement, and jubilation in her characters' expressions and stance, echoing the sorrow of war's partings in the dramatic dark areas of her careful compositions, nicely contrasted with summer's blues and greens. A poignant, beautifully wrought book. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1991
ISBN: 0316968951
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1991
What if the market was closed when you wanted to bake a pie? You could embark for Europe, learn Italian en route, and pick up some semolina wheat in Italy, an egg in France, kurundu bark for cinnamon in Sri Lanka, and an entire cow in England (butter) before coming home via Jamaica (sugar) and Vermont (apples). The expertly designed illustrations in which a dark-haired lass journeys by various means to these interesting places to get her groceries are lovely and lively, and the narrative, too, travels at a spritely pace. The journey is neither quite logical enough to be truly informative nor quite bizarre enough to be satisfyingly silly, while the rich, sweet recipe that's appended will take some adult assistance. Still, fun. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: May 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-83705-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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