by Claudia Mauner & Elisa Smalley & illustrated by Claudia Mauner ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2003
Nine-year-old Zoe Sophia and her dachshund Mickey visit her great aunt Dorothy Pomander, who lives in Venice. Zoe Sophia writes about her plane ride, Dorothy’s apartment with the Chagall, visiting the Accademia, the mask shop, and riding in a gondola with Ludovico, the gondolier. Alert readers will note that the omnipresent Mickey doesn’t make it into the gondola. Zoe Sophia panics, but Ludovico retrieves the dog. La Fenice and Murano complete Zoe Sophia’s week, and she goes home with Venetian gifts for all. A few Italian words add spice to the text, and the back endpaper is quite a nifty collage of tickets and receipts such as one gets all over Italy. Watercolor-and-ink pictures do better by architecture, both New York and Venetian, than by figures, rendered waggishly with pin-dot eyes, round heads, and pointy features. Zoe is a lively companion, but there’s more Venice deliziosa in Christina Bjork’s Vendela in Venice (1999) or all of Italy in Carol Weston’s The Diary of Melanie Martin or: How I Survived Matt the Brat, Michelangelo, and the Leaning Tower of Pizza (2000). (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-8118-3606-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
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by Claudia Mauner & Elisa Smalley & illustrated by Claudia Mauner
by Meredith Hooper & illustrated by Bee Willey ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2000
Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0792-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
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by Meredith Hooper & illustrated by Bee Willey
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by Meredith Hooper & illustrated by Stephen Biesty
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by Meredith Hooper & illustrated by Stephen Biesty
by Melissa Thomson and illustrated by Frank Morrison ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2009
Keena Ford’s second-grade class is taking a field trip to the United States Capitol. This good-hearted girl works hard to behave, but her impulsive decisions have a way of backfiring, no matter how hard she tries to do the right thing. In this second book in a series, Keena cuts off one of her braids and later causes a congressman to fall down the stairs. The first-person journal format is a stretch—most second graders can barely write, let alone tell every detail of three days of her life. Children will wonder how Keena can cut one of her “two thick braids” all the way off by pretend-snipping in the air. They will be further confused because the cover art clearly shows Keena with a completely different hairdo on the field trip than the one described. Though a strong African-American heroine is most welcome in chapter books and Keena and her family are likable and realistic, this series needs more polish before Keena writes about her next month in school. (Fiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3264-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2009
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by Melissa Thomson & illustrated by Frank Morrison
BOOK REVIEW
by Melissa Thomson & illustrated by Frank Morrison
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