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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-688-16508-7 Buckley’s Josie, first spotted in 1962, is as sprightly as ever in Ormerod’s illustrations, nimbly eluding her family’s search. As Josie’s mother, father, and brother go looking for her around the house, they are accompanied by the musical wordplay: “Did she go inside the house—rosy house, posy house? Did she go inside the house? Is that where Josie is?” Readers can search along with Josie’s family, and will spy Josie’s legs under the table or behind a coat. Ormerod’s artwork is winsome, although the literalness of her visual narrative confines the poetry rather than liberating it. Yet the pulse of Buckley’s words is bewitching, and readers may even want to take them outside and jump rope to their beat: “Look! Is that a rosy nose, a dozy nose, a posy nose? And do you see two ribbon bows? Can you count? Are there ten toes?” (Picture book. 2-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-16507-9
Page Count: 24
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Music has the capacity to make friends of enemies, in this quiet study of one introverted fellow: Mole. Mole spends his days alone in his underground hovel, until one night while eating supper in front of the television, he hears the sweet sound of a violin. “I want to make beautiful music, too,” Mole claims, then sends away for a violin of his own. One note leads to another, and his music goes from screeching to symphonic. Unbeknownst to him, his years of underground practice have overarching effects, seen by readers only in the illustrations. Lilting strains of music attract birds, farmers, presidents, and queens. Mole’s subterranean world, a realm of permanent night, is softly lit by glowing umber, while outside, fighting armies lay down their arms as the music plays on. With endearing characterizations stylistically akin to Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad, the beloved Mole will easily win the affections of readers and inspire young hopes for a better world. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-2819-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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