A well-meaning story with universal appeal.
In Albright’s debut picture book, a mother explains the concept of heaven to her young daughter after their beloved dog dies.
Light-skinned Lanie and her small, black-and-white dog, Sassie, have always been good friends, playing together and sharing snacks. One day, Lanie’s light-skinned mom tells her that Sassie has died and gone to heaven. She describes the wonderful things that Sassie will find there, such as dog treats growing on trees. She also explains how dogs befriend people who arrive in heaven and help them navigate it. Now, Lanie’s mom says, Sassie is “helping other people who need to feel the joy and enthusiastic welcome that only a dog can provide.” That night, Lanie dreams of playing with Sassie, saying goodbye to the dog, and watching her head toward her new “job.” Albright has the mother express some truly poignant sentiments, such as “It is important…that we hold onto all those happy thoughts to help us remember her.” Other statements are somewhat puzzling, though, such as that Sassie “is SO special and loves us SO much that she ages faster than we do.” However, the book’s overall message may provide comfort to kids dealing with a pet’s death. Debut illustrator Hombs’ bright images feature engaging details, including textured trees and clouds. Youngsters will enjoy the depictions of various dogs.
A well-meaning story with universal appeal.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-45681-2
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Albright Creative, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Nellie Bly’s contemporary namesake does her proud.
Eleven-year-old Nellie’s investigative reporting leads her to solve a mystery, start a newspaper, and learn key lessons about growing up.
Nellie’s voice is frank and often funny—and always full of information about newspapers. She tells readers of the first meeting of her newspaper club and then says, “But maybe I’m burying the lede…what Dad calls it when a reporter puts the most interesting part…in the middle or toward the end.” (This and other journalism vocabulary is formally defined in a closing glossary.) She backtracks to earlier that summer, when she and her mother were newly moved into a house next to her mother’s best friend in rural Bear Creek, Maine. Nellie explains that the newspaper that employed both of her parents in “the city” had folded soon after her father left for business in Asia. When Bear Creek Park gets closed due to mysterious, petty crimes, Nellie feels compelled to investigate. She feels closest to her dad when on the park’s swings, and she is more comfortable interviewing adults than befriending peers. Getting to know a plethora of characters through Nellie’s eyes is as much fun as watching Nellie blossom. Although astute readers will have guessed the park’s vandalizers, they are rewarded by observing Nellie’s fact-checking process. A late revelation about Nellie’s father does not significantly detract from this fully realized story of a young girl adjusting admirably to new circumstances. Nellie and her mother present white; secondary characters are diverse.
Nellie Bly’s contemporary namesake does her proud. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7624-9685-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Running Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pretty, though as condensations go, less Wonder-full than Robert Sabuda’s pop-up Alice (2003) or the digital Alicewinks...
A much-abridged version of the classic’s first five chapters, dressed up with large and properly surreal illustrations.
Rhatigan and Nurnberg retain “Curiouser and curiouser!” and other select bits of the original while recasting the narrative in various sizes of type and a modern-sounding idiom: “Tiny Alice needed something special to eat to get back to her regular girl size.” They take Carroll’s bemused young explorer past initial ups and downs and her encounter with a certain (here, nonsmoking) Blue Caterpillar. Looking more to Disney than Tenniel, Puybaret casts Alice as a slender figure with flyaway corn-silk hair and big, blue, widely spaced eyes posing with balletic grace against broadly airbrushed backdrops. Leafless trees and barren hills give Wonderland an open, autumnal look. The odd vegetation adds an otherworldly tone, and compact houses and residents from the White Rabbit and the Dodo to occasional troupes of mice or other small creatures in circus dress are depicted with precise, lapidary polish. A marginally relevant endpaper map (partly blocked by the flaps) leads down the River of Tears, past a turnoff for a Bathroom and on toward “the Tea Party.”
Pretty, though as condensations go, less Wonder-full than Robert Sabuda’s pop-up Alice (2003) or the digital Alicewinks (2013). (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62354-049-4
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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