A celebration of small miracles.
“Some years ago, a boy named Thomas” spends a summer collecting fragments of sea glass and dreaming of their origins.
Photorealistic watercolor illustrations depict both mid-20th-century Maine’s dappled rocks, glinting waters, and lucid sunlight and also a grandmother’s entreating, tender smile and a grandson’s eager, earnest eyes. Thomas skips rocks and scans the shore, wholly absorbed in exploration, discovery, and imaginative play. His grandfather’s magnifying glass brings the bits and pieces given up by the ocean into focus. These masterful, moving watercolor pictures transmit feelings and features so faithfully they feel somehow deeply personal. The boy’s dreams, which trace his various sea-glass finds back to the events that made them shards in the ocean, appear as full-bleed, double-page spreads in gradations of gray. Even though set in the monochromatic past, these historical scenes (a ship’s christening, a schooner tossed in a tempest’s fury) still appear startlingly clear, specific, and realistic. Young readers might play with the idea that Thomas’ dreams transmit actual historical events, turning this inexplicable impossibility over in their minds again and again like a piece of glass tumbling in the tide. When a present-day girl hands her Papaw Tom a piece of clear sea glass she finds, one that could have come from a broken magnifying glass decades before, the past and present converge. Thomas and his family all present white.
A celebration of small miracles. (Picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8443-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
A delightful, thoughtful escape to a magical world.
A mysterious hotel guest tells stories to a maid’s child.
It’s been a long time since the last letter arrived from Marta’s soldier father; without him, Marta and her mother have landed in the attic room of the Hotel Balzaar, where her mother works as a maid and Marta must be always unobtrusive. But when a flamboyant elderly countess with a parrot arrives, the new guest spots Marta right away and insists the child come to her room to hear stories. The stories enchant and frustrate Marta in equal turns, being both compelling and ending in places that leave her unsatisfied. But the stories also seem interconnected in ways that inspire Marta to examine them for deeper meaning. Pieces of the fablelike stories relate to Marta—especially to her father. Marta’s holding out in her belief that he will return to them one day, and she finds the more magical takes on reality offered by the countess’s stories reassuring in the face of her life’s ambiguities. Readers, too, will enjoy piecing together the connections among the stories and will be encouraged to seek deeper truths about people and the world around them. The vintage, baroque artwork features bold, confident lines that capture the timelessness of both Marta’s story and the countess’s tales. Characters present white.
A delightful, thoughtful escape to a magical world. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781536223316
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
A strong second outing for Dillard and J.D.
Breakout kid barber J.D. embraces a summer of opportunity.
Readers met J.D. Jones just as he took his hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, by storm, winning himself community acclaim and a chair at the revered Hart and Sons barbershop in series opener J.D. and the Great Barber Battle(2021). What’s next for the haircut prodigy? School’s just getting out, and there’s so much life happening outside—if only one can escape home learning with the grandparents. J.D.’s sister, Vanessa, brings along multitalented mutual friend Jessyka to share an ambitious challenge: “Let’s start a YouTube channel!” Can they get millions of views and wow the whole world? They are already amazing at haircuts and hairstyles—all they need is to learn how to make a great YouTube video. The story models strategies for scripting short videos reflecting the templates of viral YouTube hair tutorials, inviting readers to not only see the journey of the characters, but maybe also practice these skills at home. This book is bound to educate all about some of the most storied and cherished traditions within the Black community. Bringing in Vanessa is a great touch to extend the series across gender, and hopefully she’ll get a chance to lead her own adventures. This book blends skill-building, entrepreneurship, and strong family values to give young Black children visions of what’s possible when they follow their passions and embrace their community.
A strong second outing for Dillard and J.D. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-11155-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Kokila
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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