Florian completes a quartet of seasonal poetic explorations with this thoughtful but humorous look at the joys of spring. The 29 rhyming poems cover many of the traditional aspects of springtime: baseball, rain and mud, planting seeds, April Fool’s Day and spring cleaning, as well as many views of the changes in the natural world. Several poems use rhyming couplets with a short line length of just two or three words (“Polliwog. / Big bull frog.”), showing the author’s skill at succinct expression. Other poems use creative type treatments (such as streams of vertical words for a poem on rain) to vary the presentation. Florian’s understated illustrations in watercolor and colored pencil provide touches of droll humor in his signature style. Teachers in the early elementary grades will find this volume a breath of fresh air for poetry studies in the last months of the school year. (Poetry. 5-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-009280-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
In first-person voice, Aldrin highlights points from his childhood that led to his dream of being an astronaut and making the historic moon landing. Coincidental details like his mother’s maiden name, “Moon,” and his favorite movie hero, the “Lone Ranger,” suggest clues to his destiny. After West Point, he joined the Air Force because “he wanted to fly more than anything.” Minor’s usual beautiful and realistic illustrations effectively convey spatial perspectives and movement, adding depth to the narrative. However, the cover design and type layout are confusing, indicative of a biography instead of an autobiography—a brief intro could have clarified it. Aldrin’s message in an author’s note avows, “If you set your sights high, you may accomplish more than you ever dreamed.” Pair this with Don Brown’s One Giant Step for a child’s-eye view on space exploration. (Flight/space exploration chronology) (Picture book/biography. 6-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-055445-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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