An endearingly homespun tale that could nevertheless better balance its entertainment and education.
Aimed at elementary schoolers, Wagner’s heartwarming salute to recycling features the reincarnation of a friendly bottle and can.
In jaunty, rhymed text, Wagner introduces readers to Arnie and Bing—“Arnie, a pickle jar, and Bing, a lemonade can, / gave each other a very quick scan” after they find themselves sharing a shopping cart at the grocery store. Chewing the fat at the checkout line, Arnie and Bing discover they share a love of singing. Once home and tucked away in the dark precincts of the refrigerator, the pair sings a few tunes to keep things from getting glum; this is the kind of trying situation that forges lifelong friendships. Inevitably comes the day that both friends’ contents have been consumed; Wagner doesn’t spare readers the frisson that runs through Arnie and Bing when they’re sent to the recycling bin, and when that bin gets dumped in a truck, then deposited on the single-stream recycling floor. That’s not to say readers will be terrified, but the writing is intimate enough for them to identify with Arnie and Bing’s predicament—“Jumbled and scrunched with the paper and plastic, / their journey had gone from scary to drastic.” What will likely be new information for kids comes when the sorting commences—and the high drama drops a notch. Wagner gives a step-by-step explanation of the recycling process, with the creation of cullets and ingots and the fashioning of new containers. The book’s many photos are particularly good at conveying the processing of bottles and cans. Otherwise, the artwork is of the minimalist-intervention school—real photos with the occasional appending of cartoon eyes and mouth if a can or bottle has something to say. But those eyes are critical when Arnie and Bing are reborn as a salsa bottle and fruit punch can respectively. “Hey, hey, Bing! I KNEW that was you! / I could never forget your eyes of blue!”
An endearingly homespun tale that could nevertheless better balance its entertainment and education.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-1451577693
Page Count: 32
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2011
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
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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