Distraction is a drag when you have to concentrate, and having Dad in the stands at the basketball game yelling at you to do this and do that can be a major sensory overload. In this seventh title in the Gus and Grandpa series, Gus is introduced to the game of basketball. It’s magic out there on the practice court: Gus likes the pace, the coach, and the sweet sound of swish as the ball kisses the net. He continues to play when visiting his Grandpa, who has a beat-up old rim out on the garage. Skipper the dog barks like crazy when Gus plays, to the point where Grandpa turns off his hearing aid “so I can hear myself think.” Games, though, are a different matter. Gus can’t focus because of the crowd noise and in particular his father calling to him to “get free” and “rebound.” Gus is so flustered he never even gets a shot off. The season looks like a disaster until Grandpa shows up at the last game to show Gus a trick on how to turn off the noise—à la Skipper—and erase the competing stimuli. A cagey story, the kind born from the likes of a special relationship shared by Gus and Grandpa, and peacefully, protectively illustrated by Stock’s gentle watercolors. (Easy reader. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2001
ISBN: 0-374-32818-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lightning doesn’t strike twice, but this sweet sequel to the wonderful, award-winning Elizabeti’s Doll (1998) will hit a chord in any child who has had to care for a younger sibling. Mama has a new baby, Flora, so Elizabeti must leave her stone doll Eva in a corner and watch little Obedi. Surely taking care of Eva has prepared her for a day with Obedi. But what a pest he is, spilling rice she has just cleaned, wriggling so much on her back that she can’t balance the water jug on her head, and toddling away unnoticed to play hide-and-seek. How did Mama ever get anything done? Hale again gives the Tanzanian village in which this is set a dusty, open spareness, gracefully posing tall, brightly clad adults, capturing Elizabeti’s love and worry (never anger) with clearly drawn, unexaggerated gestures and expressions. Though too young to talk, Obedi comes across as an individual, too, with content, mischief, sadness, and relief chasing each other across his mobile features. After supper, as Mama cradles Flora, Elizabeti rocks Obedi to sleep in her arms—a peaceful end to a trying, important day in her life. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-58430-002-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In a new adventure for Gus and Grandpa, the author-illustrator duo (Gus and Grandpa and the Two-Wheeled Bike, 1999, etc.) takes readers along as Gus prepares for second-grade show-and-tell, which promises to be a far cry from his fun presentations last year, when he could bring whatever he wished. This year, the teacher has sent home a list of topics. For the first topic, Mom and Dad offer suggestions, but Gus rejects their ideas only to see other kids using them come presentation time—and Ryan Mason outshining everyone. Grandpa’s suggestion of a balloon for solids, liquids, and gases, the second topic, sounds all right, till Gus gets to school: a bunch of kids have the same idea, and “almost everyone else had rocks,” except for Ryan Mason, of course, who made a gas using vinegar and baking soda to inflate a balloon. Grandpa knows a lot of Colorado history, the third topic, but Gus can’t take Grandpa’s crackly old photographs to school . . . or can he? His show-and-tell Grandpa knocks the socks off Ryan’s next presentation and restores Gus’s faith in life’s ultimate fairness. Stock’s watercolor illustrations complement and separate blocks of beginning-to-read text, doing everything they should do in a book for this readership. Together, words and pictures are an enjoyable take on an age-appropriate issue. Gus and Grandpa are a great intergenerational team; they’re lucky to have each other—and readers are lucky to have them. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2000
ISBN: 0-374-32819-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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