by Camilla Jessel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2000
Jessel (The Kitten Book, 1992, etc.) views a typical year in the life of pupils at England’s Royal Ballet School, from successful audition to daily training for what most of them hope will be stardom somewhere on the international ballet stage. Full-color photographs appear in every spread-length chapter; these move briskly and topically from challenge to challenge. The constant message of the informative text is that dance is very hard work indeed and only the best among dedicated dancers achieve their goals. These athletes must have “the right physique and a deep sensitivity to music”; they must be eager to learn, but practical about their prospects. That realistic attitude is all but missing from most volumes on dance for this audience, and it serves to point up the heroic striving of this book’s subjects as they gain skill and strength in awkward, often painful body positions and movements, while also undertaking school and other sports. The final shots of costumed dancers onstage is nevertheless inspiring, making this excellent book the one that supportive adults will press into the arms of the artistic aspirants they care about most deeply. (glossary) (Nonfiction. 7-11)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-670-88628-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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by Camilla Jessel & photographed by Camilla Jessel
by Sallie Ketcham ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1999
PLB 0-531-33140-7 Ketcham’s first book is based on an allegedly true story of a childhood incident in the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. It starts with a couple of pages regaling the Bach home and all the Johanns in the family, who made their fame through music. After his father’s death, Johann Sebastian goes to live with his brother, Johann Christoph, where he boasts that he is the best organist in the world. Johann Christoph contradicts him: “Old Adam Reincken is the best.” So Johann Sebastian sets out to hear the master himself. In fact, he is humbled to tears, but there is hope that he will be the world’s best organist one day. Johann Sebastian emerges as little more than a brat, Reincken as more of a suggestion than a character. Bush’s illustrations are most transporting when offering details of the landscape, but his protagonist is too impish to give the story much authority. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30140-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
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by David A. Adler ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1999
Adler (also with Widener, Lou Gehrig, 1997, etc.) sets his fictional story during the week of July 14, 1932, in the Bronx, when the news items that figure in this tale happened. A boy gets a dime for his birthday, instead of the bicycle he longs for, because it is the Great Depression, and everyone who lives in his neighborhood is poor. While helping his friend Jacob sell newspapers, he discovers that his own father, who leaves the house with a briefcase each day, is selling apples on Webster Avenue along with the other unemployed folk. Jacob takes the narrator to Yankee Stadium with the papers, and people don’t want to hear about the Coney Island fire or the boy who stole so he could get something to eat in jail. They want to hear about Babe Ruth and his 25th homer. As days pass, the narrator keeps selling papers, until the astonishing day when Ruth himself buys a paper from the boy with a five-dollar bill and tells him to keep the change. The acrylic paintings bask in the glow of a storied time, where even row houses and the elevated train have a warm, solid presence. The stadium and Webster Avenue are monuments of memory rather than reality in a style that echoes Thomas Hart Benton’s strong color and exaggerated figures. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201378-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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by David A. Adler ; illustrated by Anna Raff
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by David A. Adler ; illustrated by Edward Miller
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by David A. Adler ; illustrated by John O’Brien
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