A great classroom book full of lessons about language and life.
Every dog wants to be tough—big, strong, fearless—but in this illustrated debut picture book, Jimmy finds toughness on the inside.
Jimmy is a shelter dog. Not only has he never known the love of a family, but he has also never known what it is to run and play. He was born with only three legs, so the people at the shelter have always regarded him as “special” and kept him apart from the other dogs for his own safety. When at last he is adopted, the man at the shelter bids him goodbye with a gentle warning—“Remember: don’t run or jump, and please don’t play. You could get hurt.” Love is immediate between Jimmy and his new owners, Stan and Lola, but it is slower to develop with Arrow, the other dog in the house, who doubts Jimmy’s ability to protect the yard from birds and squirrels. But Jimmy finds his footing, both literally and figuratively, and is soon racing around the park with Arrow, making new friends and growing strong and surprisingly fast. Still, it turns out that there was some truth to the shelter man’s premonition that Jimmy, left to his own devices, might get himself hurt, even though it doesn’t happen in quite the way anyone might have imagined. Jimmy’s physical and mental toughness in the face of disaster impresses everyone but surprises no one, earning him the family moniker of “Toughest. Dog. Ever.” Mills based the book, her first, on the story of her own special dog, Djembe, and used her classroom experience to craft a rich reading experience for elementary school children. She uses action and dialogue to develop her characters—spunky but anxious Jimmy, gruff Arrow, fatherly Stan—and effective sensory language to evoke the dog’s life: “Warm air and the smell of Lola, Stan, and Arrow washed over him.” There are big ideas here, too, including what it means to be special and what it means to be tough and how there are good and bad things about both. The serviceable, coloring-book–style line drawings by Shorter support the text well and will appeal to the book’s target audience.
A great classroom book full of lessons about language and life.Pub Date: March 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4969-7422-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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