The pleasure of finding unexpected links between a new country and the old suffuses this autobiographical outing.
More warm family memories from the Chinese-American creators of Mahjong All Day Long (2005), with cheery illustrations painted on ceramic plates.
The treasured weekend visits with Auntie and Uncle Yang that help an immigrant family cope with feelings of isolation take on a new wrinkle when Auntie Yang spots a field of soybeans on a Sunday drive. Mao dou were considered animal food in this country at the time but widely consumed in China. The armloads of plants that the friendly farmer allows her to bring home begin an annual picnic tradition. It eventually expands to include many Chicago-area families with, as the young narrator notes, “lots of kids just our ages who all spoke Chinese as badly as we did!” Years later, a long-awaited reunion between Auntie Yang and her sibs from China closes these memories of good times and mouth-watering Chinese food on a joyful note. The simply drawn scenes of busy, festive groups reflect the narrative’s happy tone, and they are capped with old snapshots from past gatherings in the afterword.
The pleasure of finding unexpected links between a new country and the old suffuses this autobiographical outing. (glossary) (Picture book/memoir. 6-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60060-442-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
The runt of the litter of print titles and websites covering the topic.
This tally of presidential pets reads like a school report (for all that the author is a journalist for Fox Business Network) and isn’t helped by its suite of amateurish illustrations.
Barnes frames the story with a teacher talking to her class and closes it with quizzes and a write-on “ballot.” Presidents from Washington to Obama—each paired to mentions of birds, dogs, livestock, wild animals and other White House co-residents—parade past in a rough, usually undated mix of chronological order and topical groupings. The text is laid out in monotonous blocks over thinly colored scenes that pose awkwardly rendered figures against White House floors or green lawns. In evident recognition that the presidents might be hard to tell apart, on some (but not enough) pages they carry identifying banners. The animals aren’t so differentiated; an unnamed goat that William Henry Harrison is pulling along with his cow Sukey in one picture looks a lot like one that belonged to Benjamin Harrison, and in some collective views, it’s hard to tell which animals go with which first family.
The runt of the litter of print titles and websites covering the topic. (bibliography, notes for adult readers) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62157-035-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Patriot Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Young readers on either side of the pond who are tempted to do as the queen does should not be dissuaded.
With winks broad enough to sprain his entire face, Wilkins offers a tale of the queen’s outing to London’s Natural History Museum with a reluctant corgi in tow.
Mr. Brown trotting gloomily at her heels, the queen impulsively stumps out of the palace one snowy day, marching past crowds of oblivious tourists and passersby. She’s off to see the museum’s spectacular dinosaur fossils—rendered in the scribbly illustrations with wide eyes and friendly smiles rather than bony skulls. Dismissing the asteroid-impact theory, she ruminates over why they went extinct. (Aliens ate them? Maybe they were “overwhelmed by the stink of their own poo”?) Continuing her woolgathering, she parks herself on a bench and nods off, dreaming of racing at Ascot…atop a Megalosaurus. But she’s “pipped at the post” by none other than Mr. Brown, riding a Carnotaurus. How annoying! Later a guard wakes her: “I hope you’ve got a nice, warm home to go back to?” “Thank you, yes yes I do. That’s very kind of you to enquire.” In the colored-pencil cartoons, done with childlike simplicity, Mr. Brown’s changing expressions provide silent, eloquent commentary. This is a British import, with Briticisms intact.
Young readers on either side of the pond who are tempted to do as the queen does should not be dissuaded. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-565-09325-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Natural History Museum/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
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