The widely praised illustrator of Mary Hoffman's award- winning Amazing Grace (1991) and Rita Phillips Mitchell's Hue Boy (1993) depicts an American boy's first visit to his grandparents in Tobago. Binch captures Gregory's initial disorientation with a straightforward text that incorporates the lilt of island speech in its dialogue and with beautiful watercolors. Gregory's acclimatization is predictable, but satisfying. He's never seen a home like his grandparents' small, tin-roofed cottage on concrete stilts; food like ``bake and buljol'' (bread and saltfish) seems inedible; and even a trip to the beach isn't what he expects with its lack of ice cream vendors and the view of dolphins that he initially supposes are sharks. His lithe cousin Lennox, too, is so different that the boys don't make friends at first, but of course in the end they do. Upbeat and authentic. (Picture book. 4-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8037-1577-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
An accessible call to appreciate nature.
A tree waits…and waits…for humans to pay attention in Dee’s picture book.
In the late 1700s, a sapling wants to enjoy the presence of all other living creatures. But while most animals will stop and sit with the small tree, one group will not: humans. First represented by a group of Native hunters, then by European settlers in covered wagons and Puritan home builders, the humans go about their own business, never stopping to sit with the tree. In a repeated refrain, the seeking tree asks, “Will you sit with us?” An older voice of the forest answers, “They are busy, Young One.” Each time, the tree grows more frustrated, until the forest is cleared away, first for farmland, then a city, and finally a futuristic megalopolis. In this last setting, the tree stands alone and is finally approached by a human family in space suits, who sit with the tree and gather its seeds, hopeful for the future. Dee and Oldaker create beautiful painted illustrations; the natural world’s beauty is highlighted even as it diminishes in each spread until it is overtaken. The impact of the images, and of the frustration in the seeking tree’s repeated text, ably communicates the message of how important it is to commune with the natural world.
An accessible call to appreciate nature.Pub Date: March 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781736209325
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
As atmospheric as its companion, Twilight Comes Twice, this tone poem pairs poetically intense writing with luminescent oils featuring widely spaced houses, open lawns, and clumps of autumnal trees, all lit by a huge full moon. Fletcher tracks that moon’s nocturnal path in language rich in metaphor: “With silent slippers / it climbs the night stairs,” “staining earth and sky with a ghostly glow,” lighting up a child’s bedroom, the wings of a small plane, moonflowers, and, ranging further afield, harbor waves and the shells of turtle hatchlings on a beach. Using creamy brushwork and subtly muted colors, Kiesler depicts each landscape, each night creature from Luna moths to a sleepless child and her cat, as well as the great moon sweeping across star-flecked skies, from varied but never vertiginous angles. Closing with moonset, as dawn illuminates the world with a different kind of light, this makes peaceful reading either in season, or on any moonlit night. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2003
ISBN: 0-618-16451-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003
© Copyright 2025 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.
