by George Ancona & photographed by George Ancona ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2003
Photojournalist Ancona (Harvest, not reviewed, etc.) takes his camera to the streets in this exploration of outdoor community murals in cities across the US. A look at the cave paintings of Lascaux, early church frescoes, and murals painted in Mexico City after the 1910 revolution place his subject in historical perspective. He kicks off with a pair of colorful photographs: “A tiny street in the San Francisco Mission District called Balmy Ally has become famous for the murals that cover its doors, fences, and walls.” “A mural painted on two garage doors shows the people resisting oppression by a military government in Central America.” A Philadelphia mural called “Common Threads” compares the hairstyles of high-school students and 18th-century women. As Ancona explains, the students assisted the artist by posing as models. A smaller photo shows the full face of the 7,500-square-foot mural, cars dwarfed in the foreground, while a detail of an African-American girl with cascading braids dominates the spread. A series of photographs depicts a mural created for a Boston housing project. Writes Ancona, “The artist organized more than three hundred children and residents to make clay tiles that were stamped, fired, and then assembled to create the mural.” Murals in Albuquerque, Chicago, and the South Bronx are also shown. A unique chronicle of our country’s diversity and an engaging look at the connection between the arts and activism: Ancona’s latest is first rate. (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7614-5131-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2003
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by Andrew Clements & illustrated by Brian Selznick ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1996
With comically realistic black-and-white illustrations by Selznick (The Robot King, 1995, etc.), this is a captivating...
Nicholas is a bright boy who likes to make trouble at school, creatively.
When he decides to torment his fifth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Granger (who is just as smart as he is), by getting everyone in the class to replace the word "pen'' with "frindle,'' he unleashes a series of events that rapidly spins out of control. If there's any justice in the world, Clements (Temple Cat, 1995, etc.) may have something of a classic on his hands. By turns amusing and adroit, this first novel is also utterly satisfying. The chess-like sparring between the gifted Nicholas and his crafty teacher is enthralling, while Mrs. Granger is that rarest of the breed: a teacher the children fear and complain about for the school year, and love and respect forever after.
With comically realistic black-and-white illustrations by Selznick (The Robot King, 1995, etc.), this is a captivating tale—one to press upon children, and one they'll be passing among themselves. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-689-80669-8
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996
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by Andrew Clements & illustrated by Mark Elliott
by Neil Gaiman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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by Neil Gaiman ; illustrated by Divya Srinivasan
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