A big-hearted true story of a man with rocks in his head (and in his pocket), nourished by the deep humanity in Stevenson’s watercolors. Hurst’s father was a rock hound. His mineralogical thrall started in childhood and he just couldn’t collect enough rocks. People said he had rocks in his head: “Maybe I have,” he said. “Maybe I have.” But he had to earn a living and to that end he ran a filling station, which did good business, and he kept his rock collection on the back shelves of the service bay. Then the Depression cut that business down, so the family moved to a ramshackle old house that her father had to fix up, but not before settling his rock collection up in the attic. He worked at odd jobs as he could find them, but on rainy days when he could find no work, he’d go to the science museum to look at their rock collection. One day the director of the museum has a chat with him, goes home with him to see his collection, and offers him a job as the night janitor, which leads ultimately to a curatorship in mineralogy. The purity of her father’s passion for rocks gives this story enormous power; he’s not expecting to make a buck off them, he’s just happy to be in their elemental presence. And through good time and bad, he’s like one of them—a real rock—to his family. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 31, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-029403-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
``Water is dew. Water is ice and snow.'' No matter what form it takes, seldom has plain old water appeared so colorful as in this rainbow-hued look at rain, dew, snowflakes, clouds, rivers, floods, and seas. Asch celebrates water's many forms with a succinct text and lush paintings done in mostly in softly muted watercolors of aqua, green, rose, blue, and yellow. They look as if they were created with a wet-on-wet technique that makes every hue lightly bleed into its neighbor. Water appears as ribbons of color, one sliding into the other, while objects that are not (in readers' minds) specifically water-like—trees, rocks, roots—are similarly colored. Perhaps the author intends to show water is everything and everything is water, but the concept is not fully realized for this age group. The whole is charming, but more successful as art than science. Though catalogued as nonfiction, this title will be better off in the picture book section. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-15-200189-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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