A flawed but hopeful tale about what children can achieve.
This middle-grade book follows the adventures of a girl from the far north whose ice raft drifts to New York City, where she learns about the plight of circus animals.
Haibu, 10, lives very far north in a tiny village. Her (fictional) Mayok people follow a lifestyle similar to the Inuit, which includes hunting with sled dogs, ice fishing, and avoiding polar bears, or “nanuq” (the Inuit word for polar bear). Haibu is impatient about restrictions on what girls can do in her society; she’d love to go fishing with her father and brother, for example, and isn’t scared of danger. The mantra that goes with her special bracelet has been passed down for generations: “I can do anything I believe I can do. I can be anything I believe I can be. I can achieve anything I want to achieve.” She decides to prove the mantra right and go ice fishing by herself. She catches some fish, meets a seal pup, and even learns that she can communicate with animals, but she runs into trouble when she confronts an angry polar bear. Then the ice floe beneath her breaks away and she’s sent drifting all the way to New York, where she finds refuge at an orphanage. In search of bears, Haibu finds a nearby circus, where the animals’ mistreatment galvanizes her; soon, she and the orphans mount a rescue mission. In this debut, Freeman and Price aim to educate children about “the global treatment of wild animals” and what they can do to help. The prose style is engaging and often funny, and the story may inspire kids to get involved. However, the characters’ remedy—breaking into circus cages—isn’t very practical, and scenes of animal cruelty may upset sensitive readers. The Mayok are also a problematic creation, appropriating details of traditional Inuit culture while adding elements like the Shookia bracelet, with its distinctly Western-sounding affirmations. Boros and Szikszai’s (Demon’s Dream, 1996) color illustrations are nicely detailed but cutesy, featuring middle-school-aged children with toddlerlike proportions; it’s also strange that Haibu, who’s indigenous to the Arctic, has blue eyes.
A flawed but hopeful tale about what children can achieve.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5132-6221-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Graphic Arts Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Big Brown Bear, with a natty bowler hat, is all set to paint the house in this cheerful Level 1 reader. Every page presents a full-color scene and a few words of easily predicted, often rhyming text: “Bear is big. Bear is brown. Bear goes up. He comes down.” Big Bear climbs a ladder with a pail of blue paint, while nearby, Little Bear plays with a ball and bat—“Oh no! Little Bear! Do not do that!” These are simple words, but sometimes challenging ones, e.g., there are two uses of up, as in climbing the ladder and washing up. The pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations provide nearly ideal context, while also amplifying the story. The format is attractive and practical, featuring large type on a white background that is placed for easy reading. Beginning readers will be amused by the gentle humor in the book, and feel accomplished to have tackled it themselves. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201999-5
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Green Light/Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
Troubled teen meets totemic catalyst in Mikaelsen’s (Petey, 1998, etc.) earnest tribute to Native American spirituality. Fifteen-year-old Cole is cocky, embittered, and eaten up by anger at his abusive parents. After repeated skirmishes with the law, he finally faces jail time when he viciously beats a classmate. Cole’s parole officer offers him an alternative—Circle Justice, an innovative justice program based on Native traditions. Sentenced to a year on an uninhabited Arctic island under the supervision of Edwin, a Tlingit elder, Cole provokes an attack from a titanic white “Spirit Bear” while attempting escape. Although permanently crippled by the near-death experience, he is somehow allowed yet another stint on the island. Through Edwin’s patient tutoring, Cole gradually masters his rage, but realizes that he needs to help his former victims to complete his own healing. Mikaelsen paints a realistic portrait of an unlikable young punk, and if Cole’s turnaround is dramatic, it is also convincingly painful and slow. Alas, the rest of the characters are cardboard caricatures: the brutal, drunk father, the compassionate, perceptive parole officer, and the stoic and cryptic Native mentor. Much of the plot stretches credulity, from Cole’s survival to his repeated chances at rehabilitation to his victim being permitted to share his exile. Nonetheless, teens drawn by the brutality of Cole’s adventures, and piqued by Mikaelsen’s rather muscular mysticism, might absorb valuable lessons on anger management and personal responsibility. As melodramatic and well-meaning as the teens it targets. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-380-97744-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
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