Dory’s fans will be entertained by this further adventure; an early illustrated spread will quickly draw new readers into...
First-grader Dory's imagination exceeds her reading ability, but after a black sheep follows her out of the pages of a book, she decides to work at this new skill.
In a third title in this engaging chapter-book series, Dory (whom her family calls Rascal) describes her struggles with reading. Secretly she envies her new friend, Rosabelle, who reads “big thick chapter books.” She and her reading partner and “old friend,” George, have to read a “babyish farm book.” No wonder they hate reading. But ever inventive Dory concocts a far more interesting story in which a black sheep she names Goblin follows her out of the book, her enemy, Mrs. Gobble Gracker, kidnaps it, and her fairy godmother, Mr. Nuggy, turns Mrs. Gobble Gracker into a whiny kid. Even Rosabelle is entranced. Hanlon’s childlike drawings appear in and around the story and help carry it along to a satisfying conclusion. In seven fast-moving chapters, Dory progresses from reluctant reader to determined learner, with plenty of adventure along the way: visiting Rosabelle in her castle, donning a superhero costume, rescuing Rosabelle’s little brother, and traveling beyond the universe to return the lost sheep to his family.
Dory’s fans will be entertained by this further adventure; an early illustrated spread will quickly draw new readers into Dory’s fantasmagorical worlds. (Fiction. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-99426-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There are many parallel legends – the seal women, for example, with their strange sad longings – but none is more direct than this American Indian story of a girl who is carried away in a horses’ stampede…to ride thenceforth by the side of a beautiful stallion who leads the wild horses. The girl had always loved horses, and seemed to understand them “in a special way”; a year after her disappearance her people find her riding beside the stallion, calf in tow, and take her home despite his strong resistance. But she is unhappy and returns to the stallion; after that, a beautiful mare is seen riding always beside him. Goble tells the story soberly, allowing it to settle, to find its own level. The illustrations are in the familiar striking Goble style, but softened out here and there with masses of flowers and foliage – suitable perhaps for the switch in subject matter from war to love, but we miss the spanking clean design of Custer’s Last Battle and The Fetterman Fight. 6-7
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1978
ISBN: 0689845049
Page Count: -
Publisher: Bradbury
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978
Vague text and anemic pictures make this at best a half-hearted tribute to the construction workers of the last century or so. In her brief, poetic text Johnson writes of “those shadowy building men . . . moving the earth to connect water,” of “railroad workers . . . who were there to connect all.” She continues: “As buildings tower above us / they tell the tales / of the cities . . . They whisper down past it all and say, / ‘They built us, your fathers . . .’ ” There is little here to engage child readers, either intellectually or emotionally, and Moser’s remote, indistinct portraits of ordinary-looking men (only men) dressed in sturdy working clothes and, mostly, at rest, only intermittently capture any sense of individual or collective effort. In evident recognition of these inadequacies, a prose afterword has been added to explain what the book is about—a superfluous feature had Moser and Johnson produced work up to their usual standards. Let readers spend time more profitably with the likes of John Henry or Mike Mulligan. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-66521-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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