A poem on the last page, in both English and Spanish, seems superfluous after such a silently wonderful visual treat.
This sweet, beautifully illustrated snow adventure uses creative design to tell one wordless story as if it were two.
On each double-page spread, a page-and-a-half forms one large blue and white picture tastefully highlighted with browns and golds. The other half-page features three tiny black-and-white drawings, vertically stacked but not separated by dividers. In both narratives, a girl builds a big polar bear out of snow, goes inside to bed, and falls into a dreamy frozen landscape. She plays with two polar bears, meets a baby seal and an arctic fox, and curls up to sleep between the two bears in an enchantingly cozy snow-sleep picture. Whether the adventures are dreams or reality doesn’t especially matter. Most interesting is the juxtaposition of large color pictures and the tiny black-and-whites: Rockhill avoids a facile formula (he could easily have taken the fantasy vs. reality route) and lets the content of the two complement—without repeating—each other. In the transition from bed to snowscape, a blanket edge slowly becomes a scarf and a snowdrift-like pillow becomes a hat. Those vertical hanging colors—are they curtain edges or the Aurora Borealis? This safe and thrilling night comes to an end as the girl wakes and ventures outside to find that her snowbear has melted—or maybe sauntered off to the Arctic.
A poem on the last page, in both English and Spanish, seems superfluous after such a silently wonderful visual treat. (3-6)Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-9724973-1-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Troubled teen meets totemic catalyst in Mikaelsen’s (Petey, 1998, etc.) earnest tribute to Native American spirituality. Fifteen-year-old Cole is cocky, embittered, and eaten up by anger at his abusive parents. After repeated skirmishes with the law, he finally faces jail time when he viciously beats a classmate. Cole’s parole officer offers him an alternative—Circle Justice, an innovative justice program based on Native traditions. Sentenced to a year on an uninhabited Arctic island under the supervision of Edwin, a Tlingit elder, Cole provokes an attack from a titanic white “Spirit Bear” while attempting escape. Although permanently crippled by the near-death experience, he is somehow allowed yet another stint on the island. Through Edwin’s patient tutoring, Cole gradually masters his rage, but realizes that he needs to help his former victims to complete his own healing. Mikaelsen paints a realistic portrait of an unlikable young punk, and if Cole’s turnaround is dramatic, it is also convincingly painful and slow. Alas, the rest of the characters are cardboard caricatures: the brutal, drunk father, the compassionate, perceptive parole officer, and the stoic and cryptic Native mentor. Much of the plot stretches credulity, from Cole’s survival to his repeated chances at rehabilitation to his victim being permitted to share his exile. Nonetheless, teens drawn by the brutality of Cole’s adventures, and piqued by Mikaelsen’s rather muscular mysticism, might absorb valuable lessons on anger management and personal responsibility. As melodramatic and well-meaning as the teens it targets. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-380-97744-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
A well-loved author brings together, on a Maine vacation, characters from two of her books. Peter's parents have assured him that though Sheila ("The Great") Tubman and her family will be nearby, they'll have their own house; but instead, they find a shared arrangement in which the two families become thoroughly intertwined—which suits everyone but the curmudgeonly Peter. Irrepressible little brother Fudge, now five, is planning to marry Sheila, who agrees to babysit with Peter's toddler sister; there's a romance between the grandparents in the two families; and the wholesome good fun, including a neighborhood baseball game featuring an aging celebrity player, seems more important than Sheila and Peter's halfhearted vendetta. The story's a bit tame (no controversies here), but often amusingly true to life and with enough comic episodes to satisfy fans.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1990
ISBN: 0-525-44672-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
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