A colorful, if stilted, story of family and persistence.
A brother and sister spend a day fishing with their grandpa in Arkolaki’s bilingual illustrated children’s book.
Siblings Silvia and Javier (a redheaded girl and a blond boy, both with fair skin) receive a video message from their grandfather one day inviting them to Greece for a family reunion and asking for their help with the big celebratory meal: “I’d like to welcome you all with a big family meal. This is where I’ll need your help! I’d like to cook fresh fish for you, but how am I going to catch that many all by myself?” The siblings and their parents set off for a journey that involves a taxi, a train ride, a flight, and a long ferry ride to reach their grandfather’s island. Once there, they set off for the beach. Unfortunately, the sea is too calm to catch many fish (“We need to have a bit of a wave and murky water. But never mind, we will try, and just do our best”); Silvia soon grows bored and begins collecting shells to make necklaces. Javier catches a fish, but it’s too small to keep, and he agrees to throw it back into the sea and let it grow. Eventually, they return to the family empty-handed, where their relatives—some from other countries and illustrated with a variety of skin tones—are waiting. But before anyone can go hungry, their neighbor, Mr. Lucas, shows up with a platter of fish to share. Holovchenko renders the story in vibrant watercolors, which suit the Mediterranean setting of crystal-blue waters, lush flora, and white buildings. Arkolaki’s story has a cozy, familial charm, but the original translation from Greek to English gives the prose a certain clunkiness, with moments of exposition and awkward dialogue. The Spanish translation by Cañizares, however, flows more smoothly, so it may suit English-speaking readers learning Spanish better than the other way around.
A colorful, if stilted, story of family and persistence.Pub Date: May 21, 2023
ISBN: 9798395381347
Page Count: 35
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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