THE JÖRGITS AND THE END OF WINTER

Name: THE JÖRGITS AND THE END OF WINTER
Author: Anders Sandell

by Anders Sandell & illustrated by Anders Sandell & Constanza Mahaluf & developed by Tank & Bear LLC ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 20, 2013

A tongue-in-cheek tale with serious underpinnings, enhanced by inventively designed visuals.

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Following a crash landing in the Baltic, a motley crew of space aliens encounters strange creatures (well, Finns) in this briskly paced, eco-themed import.

The seven furry Jörgits’ hopes of rescuing their icy home using Earth’s “Terra Forming” technology are dashed by the discovery that that “technology” is actually just humans’ irresponsibly messing up their own planet. Nevertheless, they ally with 11-year-old Jenny and her inventor/musician father, Joonas, to escape and then defeat a genially evil tycoon set on raising a “New Atlantis” after our society collapses. Along the way, the Jörgits also discover coffee (“…wonderful! It tasted like a mixture of burnt rubber and dirt”), plus the delights of shopping, sauna and skiing. Left with a sequel-ready open end, the tale is told in 14 chapters (plus a hidden one, unlocked by tapping five well-hidden Easter eggs) of fluent, colloquial prose with humorous side notes on sliding panels and a handy strip index. The retro-style illustrations are rendered in pastels and blocky shapes, and they range from full-screen static views to melodramatic video clips, tilt-sensitive animations, a spreadable tourist map of Helsinki and, particularly noteworthy, several panning scenes on which atmospheric musical compositions can be tapped out.

A tongue-in-cheek tale with serious underpinnings, enhanced by inventively designed visuals. (iPad science-fiction app. 9-11)

Pub Date: March 20, 2013

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Tank and Bear LLC

Review Posted Online: June 25, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013

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HOW TÍA LOLA CAME TO (VISIT) STAY

From the Tía Lola Stories series , Vol. 1

by Julia Alvarez ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay.

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Renowned Latin American writer Alvarez has created another story about cultural identity, but this time the primary character is 11-year-old Miguel Guzmán.

When Tía Lola arrives to help the family, Miguel and his hermana, Juanita, have just moved from New York City to Vermont with their recently divorced mother. The last thing Miguel wants, as he's trying to fit into a predominantly white community, is a flamboyant aunt who doesn't speak a word of English. Tía Lola, however, knows a language that defies words; she quickly charms and befriends all the neighbors. She can also cook exotic food, dance (anywhere, anytime), plan fun parties, and tell enchanting stories. Eventually, Tía Lola and the children swap English and Spanish ejercicios, but the true lesson is "mutual understanding." Peppered with Spanish words and phrases, Alvarez makes the reader as much a part of the "language" lessons as the characters. This story seamlessly weaves two culturaswhile letting each remain intact, just as Miguel is learning to do with his own life. Like all good stories, this one incorporates a lesson just subtle enough that readers will forget they're being taught, but in the end will understand themselves, and others, a little better, regardless of la lengua nativa—the mother tongue.

Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay. (Fiction. 9-11)

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-375-80215-0

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
ALREADY A BUTTERFLY
by Julia Alvarez ; illustrated by Raúl Colón

- BOOK REVIEW
WHERE DO THEY GO?
by Julia Alvarez ; illustrated by Sabra Field

- BOOK REVIEW
HOW TÍA LOLA ENDED UP STARTING OVER
by Julia Alvarez

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TUCK EVERLASTING

by Natalie Babbitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1975

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...

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At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.

Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the first week in August when this takes place to "the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning") help to justify the extravagant early assertion that had the secret about to be revealed been known at the time of the action, the very earth "would have trembled on its axis like a beetle on a pin." (Fantasy. 9-11)