Interspersing her narrative with verses from “Home on the Range,” “Sweet Betsy from Pike,” “The Old Chisholm Trail” and like cowboy chestnuts, Hopkinson retraces the early career of the greatest collector and recorder of American folk songs ever. Taking minor liberties with the historical record (and compensating with a detailed afterword), she follows him from rural Texan childhood to the halls of Harvard, and then back out onto the trail, where, with a notebook and a primitive “Ediphone,” he gathered verses and performances from anyone who would sing for him. In Schindler’s atmospheric illustrations a dapper young man mingles comfortably with brushy-mustached, Stetson-topped cowpokes—and sits in one scene with a colorfully clad fortuneteller—in settings that are mostly wide, outdoorsy spreads of western prairie. Capped with a fuller picture of the work of Lomax and his son Alan, as well as enticing source notes, this account can’t help but broaden the insight of little dogies everywhere into the histories and meaning of these enduringly popular songs. (Picture book/biography. 7-9)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-23996-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S | CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The legions of fans who over the years have enjoyed dePaola’s autobiographical picture books will welcome this longer gathering of reminiscences. Writing in an authentically childlike voice, he describes watching the new house his father was building go up despite a succession of disasters, from a brush fire to the hurricane of 1938. Meanwhile, he also introduces family, friends, and neighbors, adds Nana Fall River to his already well-known Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs, remembers his first day of school (“ ‘ When do we learn to read?’ I asked. ‘Oh, we don’t learn how to read in kindergarten. We learn to read next year, in first grade.’ ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back next year.’ And I walked right out of school.”), recalls holidays, and explains his indignation when the plot of Disney’s “Snow White” doesn’t match the story he knows. Generously illustrated with vignettes and larger scenes, this cheery, well-knit narrative proves that an old dog can learn new tricks, and learn them surpassingly well. (Autobiography. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-23246-X
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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Nolen and Nelson offer a smaller, but no less gifted counterpart to Big Jabe (2000) in this new tall tale. Shortly after being born one stormy night, Rose thanks her parents, picks a name, and gathers lightning into a ball—all of which is only a harbinger of feats to come. Decked out in full cowboy gear and oozing self-confidence from every pore, Rose cuts a diminutive, but heroic figure in Nelson’s big, broad Western scenes. Though she carries a twisted iron rod as dark as her skin and ropes clouds with fencing wire, Rose overcomes her greatest challenge—a pair of rampaging twisters—not with strength, but with a lullaby her parents sang. After turning tornadoes into much-needed rain clouds, Rose rides away, “that mighty, mighty song pressing on the bull’s-eye that was set at the center of her heart.” Throughout, she shows a reflective bent that gives her more dimension than most tall-tale heroes: a doff of the Stetson to her and her creators. (author’s note) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-15-216472-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Whistle/Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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