An affecting children’s book that accessibly addresses an uncomfortable issue for both children and adults.
A comfortably homespun children’s tale about caterpillars.
The story begins by introducing readers to a school for young caterpillars located near Lake George in the Adirondacks of upstate New York. On the first day of school in 1963, two caterpillars named Jan and Craig come there to teach music and history, respectively. They fall in love, get married and move to Canterbury, N.H., where they have four baby caterpillars named Amy, Jennifer, John and Sarah. The family lives on the Good Earth Farm, where Jan grows food, appreciates music, and teaches them all to love one another and every other caterpillar. When Jan gets sick, she visits her doctor who tells her that she’s changing and won’t be a caterpillar for much longer. She’s shocked and confused, and doesn’t understand why she can’t always be a caterpillar. The doctor also doesn’t know why, but offers the wisdom that “nothing that is living stays the same forever.” However, this doesn’t stop every caterpillar in the family, and their friends and acquaintances, from feeling very sad. Soon Jan finds that she can’t get out of bed, which scares everyone, as it means that she will soon cease to be a caterpillar. But when the time comes, something wondrous occurs: She stops being sick and blossoms into an entity more beautiful than a caterpillar—a butterfly with wings to carry her to a land filled with flowers and sunshine. All the caterpillars are upset that they can’t go with her, as they are still wingless creatures with dull coloring. But, one day, they feel the breeze from her wings when she flies invisibly above them. She speaks to them of pure love and tells them not to be sad, as she will wait for them to join her. The author and illustrator—a former public school teacher and his 8-year-old granddaughter, respectively—touchingly address the loss of a beloved spouse and grandmother in their debut book. The book’s strong specificity in its use of children’s names, dates and actual locations, and its drawings from its young illustrator, encompass the reader in a unique world. Ten percent of the book’s proceeds will support hospice centers, according to the book’s cover, which shows that its heart beats even louder than its heartfelt words.
An affecting children’s book that accessibly addresses an uncomfortable issue for both children and adults.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1484179291
Page Count: 26
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...
Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).
Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-374-33265-5
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
© 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.
