Florian’s naãf watercolor and colored pencil illustrations are excellent accompaniment to his 48 poems on the snowy season. The titular poem offers an invitation to readers to experience winter with appropriate sensory and ambulatory attitude: winter ears, eyes, nose and “winter feet/On crackling ice/Or sloshy wet sleet.” Much is made of the length of the season; summer hums and spring zings, “But winter/always/takes/its/time,” which results in “Cabin Fever,” a poem that exhibits symptoms and anodynes that are more adult than the attitudes and activities found in the majority of the poems. A sense of being snared by an endlessly white, crisply cold season permeates the book, although there are also cozy “fireplace feet” and a number of poems are devoted to the joys of winter, as in the typographically creative “Sled” and “The Winter Field,” which speak of, respectively, sailing downhill and soaring spirits. Winter-lovers and winter-haters alike will find poems that strike chords, in a collection that is perfect for reading alone by the fire, or as part of snug storytimes. (Poetry. 5-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-16458-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
Who is next in the ocean food chain? Pallotta has a surprising answer in this picture book glimpse of one curious boy. Danny, fascinated by plankton, takes his dory and rows out into the ocean, where he sees shrimp eating those plankton, fish sand eels eating shrimp, mackerel eating fish sand eels, bluefish chasing mackerel, tuna after bluefish, and killer whales after tuna. When an enormous humpbacked whale arrives on the scene, Danny’s dory tips over and he has to swim for a large rock or become—he worries’someone’s lunch. Surreal acrylic illustrations in vivid blues and red extend the story of a small boy, a small boat, and a vast ocean, in which the laws of the food chain are paramount. That the boy has been bathtub-bound during this entire imaginative foray doesn’t diminish the suspense, and the facts Pallotta presents are solidly researched. A charming fish tale about the one—the boy—that got away. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-88106-075-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Prose poems celebrate the feats of young heroines, some of them famous, and some not as well-known. Paul (Hello Toes! Hello Feet!, 1998, etc.) recounts moments in the lives of women such as Rachel Carson, Amelia Earhart, and Wilma Rudolph; these moments don’t necessarily reflect what made them famous as much as they are pivotal events in their youth that influenced the direction of their lives. For Earhart, it was sliding down the roof of the tool shed in a home-made roller coaster: “It’s like flying!” For Rudolph, it was the struggle to learn to walk without her foot brace. Other women, such as Violet Sheehy, who rescued her family from a fire in Hinckley, Minnesota, or Harriet Hanson, a union supporter in the fabric mills of Massachusetts, are celebrated for their brave decisions made under extreme duress. Steirnagle’s sweeping paintings powerfully exude the strength of character exhibited by these young women. A commemorative book, that honors both quiet and noisy acts of heroism. (Picture book/poetry. 6-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201477-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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