Uplifting and clever, Mutén’s tale also includes a layer of biographical detail sure to tantalize Dickinson lovers...
The Belle of Amherst leads some young friends on a grand adventure.
Drawing on Dickinson’s playfulness and delight in children, Mutén fashions this light verse story told from the perspective of young MacGregor “Mac” Jenkins, the pastor’s son who lived across the street from the Dickinson residence (in real life) and was a playmate of the poet’s niece and nephew. With the help of Phelan’s wispy, textured drawings, Mutén imagines the famously reclusive poet playfully disguised as “Proserpina—Queen of the Night,” leading her tiny band of “Amherst gypsies” on a midnight quest to spy the arrival of the Great Golden Menagerie and Circus at the Amherst train station. Both poet and children thrill at the opportunity to meet a fortuneteller and witness the unloading of exotic circus animals, but as they speed home to avoid being recognized, Mac falls and injures himself. Mac’s resulting convalescence, landing him “housebound / like a winter bee in the hive,” draws not only an unprecedented visit from “Miss Emily,” but the chance for her to treat Mac and friends to another tale. It also gives Mutén an apt occasion to weave in a bit of actual correspondence from the poet to the children outlining her wish: “Please never improve—you are perfect now.”
Uplifting and clever, Mutén’s tale also includes a layer of biographical detail sure to tantalize Dickinson lovers everywhere. (biographical notes, bibliography) (Verse novel. 8-12)Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5734-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
An inspirational exploration of caring among parent, teacher and child—one of Grimes’ best. (Poetry. 8-12)
In this delightfully spare narrative in verse, Coretta Scott King Award–winning Grimes examines a marriage’s end from the perspective of a child.
Set mostly in the wake of her father’s departure, only-child Gabby reveals with moving clarity in these short first-person poems the hardship she faces relocating with her mother and negotiating the further loss of a good friend while trying to adjust to a new school. Gabby has always been something of a dreamer, but when she begins study in her new class, she finds her thoughts straying even more. She admits: “Some words / sit still on the page / holding a story steady. / … / But other words have wings / that wake my daydreams. / They … / tickle my imagination, / and carry my thoughts away.” To illustrate Gabby’s inner wanderings, Grimes’ narrative breaks from the present into episodic bursts of vivid poetic reminiscence. Luckily, Gabby’s new teacher recognizes this inability to focus to be a coping mechanism and devises a daily activity designed to harness daydreaming’s creativity with a remarkably positive result for both Gabby and the entire class. Throughout this finely wrought narrative, Grimes’ free verse is tight, with perfect breaks of line and effortless shifts from reality to dream states and back.
An inspirational exploration of caring among parent, teacher and child—one of Grimes’ best. (Poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59078-985-8
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
Nellie Bly’s contemporary namesake does her proud.
Eleven-year-old Nellie’s investigative reporting leads her to solve a mystery, start a newspaper, and learn key lessons about growing up.
Nellie’s voice is frank and often funny—and always full of information about newspapers. She tells readers of the first meeting of her newspaper club and then says, “But maybe I’m burying the lede…what Dad calls it when a reporter puts the most interesting part…in the middle or toward the end.” (This and other journalism vocabulary is formally defined in a closing glossary.) She backtracks to earlier that summer, when she and her mother were newly moved into a house next to her mother’s best friend in rural Bear Creek, Maine. Nellie explains that the newspaper that employed both of her parents in “the city” had folded soon after her father left for business in Asia. When Bear Creek Park gets closed due to mysterious, petty crimes, Nellie feels compelled to investigate. She feels closest to her dad when on the park’s swings, and she is more comfortable interviewing adults than befriending peers. Getting to know a plethora of characters through Nellie’s eyes is as much fun as watching Nellie blossom. Although astute readers will have guessed the park’s vandalizers, they are rewarded by observing Nellie’s fact-checking process. A late revelation about Nellie’s father does not significantly detract from this fully realized story of a young girl adjusting admirably to new circumstances. Nellie and her mother present white; secondary characters are diverse.
Nellie Bly’s contemporary namesake does her proud. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7624-9685-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Running Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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