Oy silently cries out in frustration that her teacher and classmates do not accept her as Thai; her teacher issues her an “easier-to-remember” English name; and her fourth-grade classmates pull their round eyes into slits and call her “Chinita,” little Chinese. Revealing the challenges young immigrants face in a mixed-race school environment, Oy feels torn between the respect she feels for her Thai culture and the acceptance she wants from her American culture. When she draws her family picture, their eyes are as round as those of the boy who teases her most, further exemplifying her will to fit in. She typifies the average fourth-grader’s yearning in a way that each reader will recognize or remember. Acceptance into a campus girl’s club is contingent upon allowing chubby club members to wear her petite, gold-threaded dress. The slow plot builds to climactic action as school authorities disband and discipline the whole club, whose members are discovered lined up in their underwear waiting for a turn to try on, inadvertently soil, and tear the delicate garment, symbolic of Oy’s tender spirit. In an emotional buildup, Oy is forced to face her choices and reconsider her goals. Marsden, in her debut, draws on her own experience as she describes a loving family guiding their daughter in a difficult time. Those who read this short, character-driven story will remember the parallels between their personal experience and the forceful message, concluding that being kinder to new immigrants builds delightful friendships and provides interesting insights into rich cultures. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1569-2
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2002
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
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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