Estrella has special gifts: She can run so fast that she sets fire to the air, and she can also heal and tame both ranch animals and some creatures that are more unusual—like a Kickle Snifter, a Sidehill Wowser and a Rubberado, all of whom have very strange and useful skills. In this tallest of original tall tales, set during the California Gold Rush, brave, resourceful Estrella and her pets help form mountains, turn the Whitewoods into Redwoods and deal with a pack of evil ghost miners. There are eccentric characters galore and lots of improbable adventures as Isaacs takes the reader on a wild, imaginative, breathless ride, employing rich language packed with colorful western idioms. Santat’s acrylic-and-ink illustrations, enhanced via Photoshop, capture the flavor of the Wild West and are appropriately exaggerated to complement the extraordinary events described. Lovely endpapers depict a softer, gentler Estrella dwarfed by the majestic redwoods. A delightful, spirited heroine in an enormously enjoyable romp. (Picture book. 7-10)
Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4169-0201-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2008
Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0792-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda.
Hank Zipzer, poster boy for dyslexic middle graders everywhere, stars in a new prequel series highlighting second-grade trials and triumphs.
Hank’s hopes of playing Aqua Fly, a comic-book character, in the upcoming class play founder when, despite plenty of coaching and preparation, he freezes up during tryouts. He is not particularly comforted when his sympathetic teacher adds a nonspeaking role as a bookmark to the play just for him. Following the pattern laid down in his previous appearances as an older child, he gets plenty of help and support from understanding friends (including Ashley Wong, a new apartment-house neighbor). He even manages to turn lemons into lemonade with a quick bit of improv when Nick “the Tick” McKelty, the sneering classmate who took his preferred role, blanks on his lines during the performance. As the aforementioned bully not only chokes in the clutch and gets a demeaning nickname, but is fat, boastful and eats like a pig, the authors’ sensitivity is rather one-sided. Still, Hank has a winning way of bouncing back from adversity, and like the frequent black-and-white line-and-wash drawings, the typeface is designed with easy legibility in mind.
An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-448-48239-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
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