A light, slight fantasy.
Ghost cat Sailor Boy is a faithful companion even after the end.
Miss Maggie McCullen, a red-haired white woman, has been in charge of the Port Carrick lighthouse for 42 years. Siamese cat Sailor Boy used to live with her. When he died, he decided to stay with her. He seems to retain his corporeality but can choose when to be visible. They go about their days pretty much as they did when he was alive, and each night he helps her light the light that keeps the boats around Port Carrick safe from the rocks. People on the mainland think Miss Maggie must be lonely, but they don’t know about Sailor Boy. The occasional paying visitors to the island don’t know about Sailor Boy (even when he invisibly taunts them with ghostly purrs or ankle scratches). When Miss Maggie’s niece Cissie Curry, also white, comes to visit and must stay the night due to a storm, Miss Maggie sprains her ankle on the stairs. Sailor Boy must get Cissie’s attention and help her light the light. Can he do it? This is an odd offering from the prolific Bunting. Barry’s watercolor illustrations in sepia-muted colors are appealing, but the tale they help to tell is slight. His ghostly nature makes Sailor Boy interesting, but it’s his ability to act like a living cat that saves the day (or night), which will likely strike readers as contradictory.
A light, slight fantasy. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-58536-993-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books.
Curious about the Big Wide World outside his Sasquatch community, Hugo makes a friend who is of it.
Sasquatch Hugo’s bedroom is inside a cave and possesses the charming feature of a small stream running through it that he can sail his little toy boat on. It’s cool, but he yearns to see the Big Wide World. When he asks his smart friend Gigi if a Sasquatch might become a sailor, she says it’s possible but would be difficult—the primary rule of their people is to not be seen by Humans. Then, in everyone’s favorite Hide and Go Sneak class, which is held outside, a Human appears; Hugo laughs at the sight, drawing Human attention in a taboo-breaking mistake. Shortly after, Hugo’s toy boat floats into the cave with a Human toy—soon, it’s facilitating a pen-pal–type relationship that’s derailed when Hugo confesses to being a Sasquatch and Human Boone, a budding cryptozoologist, doesn’t believe him. How Hugo and Boone resolve this misapprehension and become friends in a joint search for the Ogopogo concludes this series opener. Potter keeps the third-person narrative tightly focused on Hugo’s perspective, and the details she uses to flesh out the Sasquatch world are delightfully playful. Sala’s drawings depict a homey Sasquatch cavern community, Boone as a freckled, white boy, and Hugo as a hairily benevolent behemoth.
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books. (final art unseen) (Fantasy. 5-9)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2859-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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