Mom and Dad are off to Paris, but Grandma has a better trip in mind for Liz and Lenny. All three dress in clothes from the attic; then Grandma puts on her magic hat and takes the kids and the dog, Moose, back in time to 1843. There they join their ancestors traveling west in a covered wagon on the Oregon Trail. Stanley (A Time Apart, 1999, etc.) gives a humorous and historically accurate account, with tidbits about cooking on the trail, encounters with Native Americans, and hunting for berries and wild onions in the meadows near the Bear River. Even history buffs will find something new in this description; for example, the author describes removing the wheels from covered wagons, covering the wagon frames with buffalo hides rubbed with tallow and ashes, and floating the wagons across the river. The travelers and their dogs add their own quips and comments on the journey in conversation balloons. Berry (Market Day, 1996, etc.) provides appealing illustrations, rich in detail. The front endpapers show a map of the Oregon Trail in 1843 while the back endpapers show a map of the Oregon Trail today. An author's note explains that it stretches 2,170 miles and was traveled by over 400,000 settlers between 1840 and 1880. Young readers who have discovered The Magic School Bus will relish this adventure of “The Time-Traveling Twins,” and look forward to further adventures. (Nonfiction. 6-10)
Pub Date: May 31, 2000
ISBN: 0-06-027065-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2000
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Fact and fiction dovetail neatly in this tale of a wonderfully resolute child who finds a memorable way to convince her father that the newly-finished Brooklyn Bridge is safe to cross. Having watched the great bridge going up for most of her young life, Hannah is eager to walk it, but despite repeated, fact-laced appeals to reason (and Hannah is a positive fount of information about its materials and design), her father won’t be moved: “No little girl of mine will cross that metal monster!” Hannah finally hatches a far-fetched plan to convince him once and for all; can she persuade the renowned P.T. Barnum to march his corps of elephants across? She can, and does (actually, he was already planning to do it). Pham places Hannah, radiating sturdy confidence, within sepia-toned, exactly rendered period scenes that capture both the grandeur of the bridge in its various stages of construction, and the range of expressions on the faces of onlookers during its opening ceremonies and after. Readers will applaud Hannah’s polite persistence. (afterword, resources) (Picture book. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-689-87011-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2004
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