Lindbergh first recast Psalm 139 in simple, rhymed couplets in her anthology In Every Tiny Grain of Sand (2000). Here, Caldecott Honor Medalist Meade (Hush, 1996) expands the verse with watercolor and collage using geometric forms and color both matte and translucent to create satisfying, accessible images. In the frontispiece, a little girl peers down from her top bunk to see if her little brother, snuggled with his bear, is awake yet. The siblings (and the bear) proceed on a sunlit day to frolic with two friends, one a dark-skinned boy, the other a café-au-lait girl. They climb trees, build sandcastles, play in and by the lake, toast marshmallows, and at last turn in for the night, flashlight at the ready, in a tent outside. The text begins, “Lord, you look at me and know me, / Every step I take, you show me.” It continues through the sense of the psalm, “When I’m lonely, you are near, / When I’m angry, you stay here. / High as heaven bright, you greet me, / Down in darkness, too, you meet me.” The Divine as an all-caring presence is underscored in the structure of the pictures: no adults appear, but the activities, like boating and building a campfire, imply adult action in loving support and unobtrusive care. There is a certain heaviness to the beat of the couplet format, but that is mitigated somewhat by pictorial clarity and sincere reverence. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7636-1106-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lushly illustrated homage to librarians who provide a welcome and a home away from home for all who enter.
A love letter to libraries.
A Black child, with hair in two puffballs tied with yellow ribbons, a blue dress with a Peter Pan collar, and black patent leather Mary Janes, helps Grandmother with the housework, then, at Grandmother’s suggestion, heads to the library. The child’s eagerness to go, with two books under an arm and one in their hand, suggests that this is a favorite destination. The books’ wordless covers emphasize their endless possibilities. The protagonist’s description of the library makes clear that they are always free to be themselves there—whether they feel happy or sad, whether they’re reading mysteries or recipes, and whether they feel “quick and smart” or “contained and cautious.” Robinson’s vibrant, carefully composed digital illustrations, with bright colors that invite readers in and textures and patterns in every image, effectively capture the protagonist’s passion for reading and appreciation for a space where they feel accepted regardless of disposition. In her author’s note, Giovanni states that she spent summers visiting her grandmother in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she went to the Carnegie Branch of the Lawson McGhee Library. She expresses gratitude for Mrs. Long, the librarian, who often traveled to the main library to get books that Giovanni could not find in their segregated branch. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A lushly illustrated homage to librarians who provide a welcome and a home away from home for all who enter. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-358-38765-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Versify/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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