A strangely tender story of love, loss, and devotion that is imbued with the rhythms of its creatures: a slow, compelling rhythm to match the placid determination of a reindeer named Caesar, offset by the quick, bright, frantic rhythms of the sparrows he is attempting to help. When Piorello, a sparrow, is injured by flying into a window of a house, Elsbeth, the kind-hearted girl who is visiting her grandmother there, takes him back with her to a British boarding school. Separated by a sea from his mate, Bette, and their chicks, Piorello trains frantically with a flock of geese for the long-distance flight back. In the meantime, Bette and the chicks embark on a search for Piorello by affixing their nest to the antlers of a gentle reindeer, Caesar, who is journeying into the wilderness with supplies for his human friends. Although this is an adventure of survival and longing, brushed with a wisp of magic, it is also a treatise on the nature of love: of mate for mate, creature for creature, adult for child, human for animal. In his first book for children, aided by the black-and-white chapter drawings that launch each chapter, Hansen (for adults, The Chess Garden, 1995) creates a timeless atmosphere for a tale that is as unusual as it is accomplished. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1997
ISBN: 0-374-31024-6
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A heartfelt but awkwardly paced novel of an orphan finding her way in 1910 Vermont. Harriet, 13, loses her mother when their horse shies from an automobile. Still barely comprehending her loss, she must also leave the house she and her mother shared to go live with her dead father Walter’s gruff sister. Sarah has had a hard life, and it shows, as she teaches Harry how to churn, gather hay, and find eggs, with little patience for her niece’s longing for school, or for the colt she loves, foal of the mare who died when her mother did. Sarah hated Harry’s mother, too, implying that pregnancy forced her beloved Walter into marriage. Harry doesn’t know the family story, but visits to the cemetery and the stories of another uncle help her piece together her past and offer her insight into Sarah’s brittleness. The emotional transitions are abrupt; the story predictably comes out all right when Harry’s school tuition gets paid, and when she and Sarah recognize their ties in blood and feeling. Readers will be comforted by the cozy denouement, and by Haas’s evocative descriptions of Vermont in the early years of this century. (Fiction. 9-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-16260-6
Page Count: 185
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
Marguerite Henry died barely two years ago, after living the life of which most writers dream: She wrote from the time she was young, her parents encouraged her, she published early and often, and her books were honored and loved in her lifetime. Her hobby, she said, was words, but it was also her life and livelihood. Her research skills were honed by working in her local library, doing book repair. Her husband Sidney supported and encouraged her work, and they traveled widely as she carefully researched the horses on Chincoteague and the burros in the Grand Canyon. She worked in great harmony with her usual illustrator, Wesley Dennis, and was writing up until she died. Collins is a bit overwrought in his prose, but Henry comes across as strong and engaging as she must have been in person. Researchers will be delighted to find her Newbery acceptance speech included in its entirety. (b&w photos, bibliography, index) (Biography. 9-12)
Pub Date: March 10, 1999
ISBN: 1-883846-39-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
