In the early 19th century in upstate New York, young Abbie despairs of ever making stitches as fine and even as her older sister Sarah’s. She would much rather be reading. Every Wednesday, Abbie goes with Sarah to Mrs. Brown, who has been teaching the girls needlework for several years. Abbie is now old enough to plan her first sampler: the alphabet, her numbers, a border. She works on it through the autumn and winter, always wishing she were reading instead. In the spring, she struggles to choose the picture and the saying that will be on her sampler. When she decides on something very important to her, her teacher and parents are at first surprised but then pleased. Her parents give her not only a needlework box like Sarah’s with her own thimble, scissors and needles, but a book of her very own. The illustrations have freely drawn impressionistic backgrounds and nicely detailed facial expressions and needlework bits. (sources, afterword) (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-374-30004-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
A well-rhymed, action-packed sailing adventure with plenty of heart.
A young sailor encounters a cursed pirate with unexpected results in this picture book from a humorist.
Honsberger skillfully launches the tale of Sydney Shorts, the brown-skinned captain of a ship “strong and miles long / if ye dare to hear. / The sail reached high, it touched the sky / and left all others in fear.” But one older pirate isn’t afraid of Sydney’s ship: cursed and wicked Capt. Cole. When the two crews face off on a turbulent sea, it looks like the end for Sydney and his gang. But Sydney’s song strikes a memory within Cole, who realizes the boy is the child he had to leave behind when he was accused of piracy. After another confrontation, the two captains find a way to overcome Cole’s curse—and it’s revealed that the real Sydney is listening to his mom telling a bedtime story. The topic of a father abandoning his family is a weighty and difficult one, and the author introduces the huge mix of emotions the parent and child might feel in a consistent rhyming text without undermining the tale’s gravity. Reveley’s stylistic, digital illustrations, with thick outlines a shade darker than the characters’ faces, embrace the swashbuckling energy of the stirring story but mismatch details. Cole appears far too cheerful and sweet to be a dastardly pirate, and the stormy sea is full of bright blues and pinks, speckled with stars, rather than dark colors.
A well-rhymed, action-packed sailing adventure with plenty of heart.Pub Date: Dec. 22, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-33339-7
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An engrossing look at a war that sacrificed both horses and people.
Morpurgo adapts his 1982 novel for a younger audience.
Albert and Joey, his red bay, are bonded “like brothers.” Joey responds to Albert’s calls, and together, they work on the family farm in Devon, plowing, sowing, and harvesting. When war breaks out in Europe, Albert’s father, in need of money for the farm, sells Joey to the military. Albert, devastated, vows to one day reunite with Joey. He angrily leaves home and enlists in the army, lying about his age. Ensuing spreads depict Albert training for and entering World War I’s trench warfare. Joey’s fortunes are equally miserable as a cavalry horse. The narrative, heavily anthropomorphizing Joey throughout, tracks him as he and stablemate Topthorn are captured by the Germans. They pull an ambulance cart, spend a calmer summer on a farm, then endure grueling work pulling guns before garnering gentler treatment from German soldier Friedrich. Morpurgo’s sentimental treatment, matched by Disney-esque tableaux intermittently delivered in comics-style panels, nonetheless conveys war as barbaric and treacherous for all—human or animal. After a battle in which both Friedrich and Topthorn are killed, Joey races away, turning up on the wastes of the no man’s land between the warring armies. Albert and an English-speaking German soldier toss a coin for Joey, and Albert, the apparent winner, returns home with Joey at war’s end. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An engrossing look at a war that sacrificed both horses and people. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4052-9244-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Farshore/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
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