A useful resource for children with a relative or friend fighting cancer.
Dittmer (Breast Cancer: The Unplanned Journey—Lessons Learned, 2011) and illustrator Stacy use the approachable and comforting perspective of a stuffed bear to help children cope with and understand the changes affecting a cancer patient.
Cancer can be scary, not just for the people going through it, but also for the children watching them suffer. Bear, a stuffed bear, has a halo and wings and a desire to help. Santa gave Bear to Lilli when she was sick, yet when Lilli’s grandmother is diagnosed with cancer, Lilli decides that the best thing she can do is send Bear to help. At first, Bear is nervous he might catch cancer from Grandmother B, but Lilli explains cancer isn’t contagious. Grandmother B is glad to have Bear beside her to fight her cancer “battle.” Grandmother B, Grandpa Paul, Mr. Pye (the cat), and Bear soon move to a big city, where Grandmother B can have easier access to the hospital for her cancer treatments. Bear sticks with Grandmother B through the whole process: removing her breasts so the cancer won’t spread, taking the “strong medicine” of chemotherapy, her hair falling out, visiting a counselor (who “helps Grandmother B feel better in her mind”), and finally celebrating her recovery. Each step of the way, Bear’s growing understanding is delivered in accessible prose. Dittmer never shies away from the realities of cancer, even the possibility of death. Instead, Bear delivers these ideas in ways that make them approachable for children, especially those who live in a faith-driven environment. Vocabulary is explained well, with new words defined in the text as Bear learns how to use medical terms. The amount of text puts it at an independent-reading level, but the ideas and tone are better geared toward younger lap readers. A guide in the back also helps parents know how to approach the text and talk about cancer with their children. Stacy’s child-friendly illustrations are in a simplistic cartoon style, with each page prominently featuring the cute stuffed animal.
A useful resource for children with a relative or friend fighting cancer.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Western Computer Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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