Like Barbara Dugan's (above), a book that asks the question: ``Can an insect find happiness in a jar?'' (and from the same publisher, yet). When he hears a cricket chirping, Alan Lee is determined to catch it—especially after great-uncle Clem tells him about making cricket cages as a boy in China, and that ``It's a lucky house that has crickets.'' Despite his reservations (see title), Dad helps Alan Lee fix up a jar; but when he finally catches the cricket, it doesn't take long for its silence and evident unhappiness to make the boy let it go, so that it sings once more. Porte's rather long narrative, propelled by plenty of lively realistic dialogue, artfully reveals a lot about this nice family's interaction; Ruff's tall, slim, beautifully composed illustrations, rendered in pastels and colored pencils, make an admirably warm complement to a story that's as well told as Dugan's, and more appealingly illustrated. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-688-11793-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Mixed-race children certainly deserve mirror books, but they also deserve excellent text and illustrations. This one misses...
This tan-skinned, freckle-faced narrator extols her own virtues while describing the challenges of being of mixed race.
Protagonist Lilly appears on the cover, and her voluminous curly, twirly hair fills the image. Throughout the rhyming narrative, accompanied by cartoonish digital illustrations, Lilly brags on her dark skin (that isn’t very), “frizzy, wild” hair, eyebrows, intellect, and more. Her five friends present black, Asian, white (one blonde, one redheaded), and brown (this last uses a wheelchair). This array smacks of tokenism, since the protagonist focuses only on self-promotion, leaving no room for the friends’ character development. Lilly describes how hurtful racial microaggressions can be by recalling questions others ask her like “What are you?” She remains resilient and says that even though her skin and hair make her different, “the way that I look / Is not all I’m about.” But she spends so much time talking about her appearance that this may be hard for readers to believe. The rhyming verse that conveys her self-celebration is often clumsy and forced, resulting in a poorly written, plotless story for which the internal illustrations fall far short of the quality of the cover image.
Mixed-race children certainly deserve mirror books, but they also deserve excellent text and illustrations. This one misses the mark on both counts. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63233-170-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Eifrig
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A tall-tale introduction to the ``King of the Keelboatmen,'' from the time he ran away from home at the age of two days to his literally explosive confrontation with steamboat captain Hilton B. Blathersby. The historical Fink was a cruel man who came to a violent end, but Kellogg depicts him as a friendly-looking, fun-loving youth; indeed, nearly all of the keelboatmen here- -black, white, old, and young—are smiling, clean-cut types, rather at odds with their usual roughneck image. Though Fink spends much of his time wrestling men or bears, Kellogg's description of him seems bland in comparison to his glowing, energetic illustrations, and less heroic than his other legendary figures. (Picture book/Folktale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 21, 1992
ISBN: 0-688-07003-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992
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