Handsomely illustrated with cut-paper art by Wisniewski (The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups, 1998, etc.), this homage to tools from Clements (Frindle, 1996, etc.) conveys a sense of their beauty and mystery. The making of an old-fashioned carousel is the never-mentioned, ever-present event as a baker’s dozen of tools—ruler, saw, grinder, screwdriver, wrench, etc.—and the toolbox are introduced in a few lines each, one to each spread. The clipped text evokes not just the attributes of the tool—that the wrench wrestles with its work, that the axe finds the board that hides in the log—but a hint, if fanciful, of their character: drills are patient, rulers know, knives are edgy, the toolbox remembers. The text is occasionally staccato (“Toolbox carries tools home. Workshop is home”) but mostly has a good poetic pulse. The illustrations are pure entertainment, slowly revealing that the workmen and apprentice are using their fine old tools to put together a turn-of-the-century carousel. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 19, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-85579-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
The grasslands of the Canadian west serve as a setting for this coming-of-age story from Reynolds. A parched summer means trouble for Percy’s homesteading family. His father decides to plow a fireguard around the house and Percy is eager to help, but his parents advise him to wait a couple more years to shoulder a man’s work. Then the dreaded happens, as a prairie fire advances over the horizon toward their farm. There is no time to waste; his parents man the fireguard while Percy is put in charge of dousing the spot fires set off by flying ash. This he does with responsibility and imagination, deploying a clever trick to calm his skittish horse. After the fire passes and time comes to collect the oxen from the slough, Percy is asked to help: “It’s a job for two men. Why don’t you come with me, Son?” This exciting story is realistically told; Percy indeed earns his stature, while Kilby’s illustrations allow the prairie and the wildfire each to take on a haunting presence. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-55143-137-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
Nadia, a Pakistani-American girl, has been chosen to be the flower girl for Auntie Laila’s traditional wedding. Nadia will wear shalwar, or silky trousers, with a matching kameez on top. She’ll have her hair curled, and she’ll walk down the aisle, strewing flower petals left and right. Before the wedding, however, she’ll have her hands decorated with the mehndi, a dark red henna paste swirled into intricate designs, flowers, and stars. Everyone assumes that Nadia is thrilled, but she’s worried about Monday, when she’ll have to go to school with the indelible designs still on her hands. How the strength of time-honored traditions and the warmth and love of a large extended family transform Nadia’s feelings about her hands make an affecting—though somewhat abruptly resolved’story. Weiner’s pastel illustrations amplify the text; he shows Nadia’s ambivalence in her face and posture, and conveys both her pleasure at her important role in the wedding, and her reluctance to be different at school. When she comes to terms with those fears, her smile is radiant. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-56397-667-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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