Beautifully crafted and warmly empathetic.
Inspired by her family’s experiences of leaving Moscow following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Desnitskaya examines the effects of emigration.
A mother and child, pale-skinned with reddish hair, have left home. The youngster shares details about the big city they’ve left behind. A star-shaped cardboard lamp used to hang in the apartment’s kitchen window, orienting the child while the little one headed home from music lessons. As war began, “We left for another country. It’s not like home here.” The language, the food, the view from the bleak new apartment: all unfamiliar. A gifted illustrator, Desnitskaya contrasts past and present in facing spreads with varied color intensities. Prior scenes show the family’s contentment as they eat and read in the warm glow of the star lamp. There’s a red-haired, light-skinned adult in one scene: Dad? The new city and apartment are unremittingly gray, with shop and street signs depicted in intentionally obscure text. People’s word bubbles reveal only scribbles. “Even Mom is different.” She bends over her phone, her back to the narrator, effectively personifying the desperate attempt to connect with what—and who—has been left behind. When Mom brings craft supplies home one day, the pair make a cardboard star and rig a lamp for the window. “After that, everything around us became a little less different.” Scenes brighten as the city grows more decipherable, and the narrator makes a friend. The blue-and-yellow color palette poignantly hints at Desnitskaya’s sympathies.
Beautifully crafted and warmly empathetic. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780802856319
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books.
Curious about the Big Wide World outside his Sasquatch community, Hugo makes a friend who is of it.
Sasquatch Hugo’s bedroom is inside a cave and possesses the charming feature of a small stream running through it that he can sail his little toy boat on. It’s cool, but he yearns to see the Big Wide World. When he asks his smart friend Gigi if a Sasquatch might become a sailor, she says it’s possible but would be difficult—the primary rule of their people is to not be seen by Humans. Then, in everyone’s favorite Hide and Go Sneak class, which is held outside, a Human appears; Hugo laughs at the sight, drawing Human attention in a taboo-breaking mistake. Shortly after, Hugo’s toy boat floats into the cave with a Human toy—soon, it’s facilitating a pen-pal–type relationship that’s derailed when Hugo confesses to being a Sasquatch and Human Boone, a budding cryptozoologist, doesn’t believe him. How Hugo and Boone resolve this misapprehension and become friends in a joint search for the Ogopogo concludes this series opener. Potter keeps the third-person narrative tightly focused on Hugo’s perspective, and the details she uses to flesh out the Sasquatch world are delightfully playful. Sala’s drawings depict a homey Sasquatch cavern community, Boone as a freckled, white boy, and Hugo as a hairily benevolent behemoth.
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books. (final art unseen) (Fantasy. 5-9)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2859-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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