Sir John A. Macdonald once envisioned what Gordon Lightfoot called “an iron road runnin’ from the sea to the sea”—the Canadian Pacific Railway, begun in 1885. In this dramatic, oversized tribute to the construction of that mighty railroad, both the lyrics of Lightfoot’s song “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” (1967) and Wallace’s dazzling chalk pastels powerfully illustrate the manifestation of that ambitious dream, emphasizing the ethnically diverse people who made it possible and those whose lives were forever changed by it: “We are the navvies who work upon the railway, / Swingin’ our hammers in the bright blazin’ sun. / Layin’ down track and buildin’ the bridges, / Bendin’ our backs ’til the railroad is done.” The atmospheric illustrations—each explained in wonderfully detailed endnotes—capture not only the workers’ toil but also the splendor of the Canadian landscape and, obliquely, the price the displaced First Nations people paid for steam-train technology. (music and lyrics, illustrator’s notes, a brief history of the Canadian Pacific Railway, further reading) (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-88899-953-5
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
A radiant tale of adventure and friendship.
A boy on land and a girl at sea overcome language barriers to become friends.
A girl wearing a white, wide-brimmed hat steers a boat, worry across her face. “I’m lost.” A boy in a red-orange cap holding a conch shell on a string stares out at the sea. “Soy náufrago.” She sees land and heads toward it. He spots the boat, hoping for a friend rather than a foe. As each child notices the other, their mutual trepidation leads to an unexpected initial encounter. “AAAAAAAH!” “¡AAAAAAA!” Both children, however, soon realize they have nothing to fear. Amid island backdrops brimming with rich blues, greens, and oranges, the girl and the boy take tentative steps toward one another. A problem: She speaks English; he speaks Spanish. To communicate, the girl and the boy explore the island and share a little of their worlds. Eventually, the children voyage off the island in the boat, but a sudden storm splits them up. Will the friends reunite? Restrained and spare but potent text whips up an exceptional tale of kinship, where English and Spanish words often converge in meaning. Montalvo’s watercolor, gouache, and graphite artwork brims with verve, leveraging unusual perspectives, thoughtful frames, and vivid tones that culminate in a sublime gatefold. The girl reads as white, while the boy has light brown skin and is cued Latine.
A radiant tale of adventure and friendship. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250246721
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
Lovely and life-affirming.
This wordless story, bookended by the creation of two iconic paper toys, follows a Latino boy through outdoor playtime.
After his father folds a boat from a sheet of newspaper with a photo of sailboats on it, the boy sets off in head-to-toe yellow raingear. He shields his boat from a downpour, then floats it in puddles that reflect the tidy neighborhood’s houses and trees. After some joyous puddle-jumping, the boy sets the boat into a sluicing rivulet, pursuing it as it’s swept away. When the boat slips down a grate, the dramatic perspective is from the inky dark underground, the boy futilely stretching an arm through the bars. Washed from a drainage pipe into a stream, the erstwhile boat, now a sodden sheet, is fished out by the dejected lad. He walks home to the comfort of dad’s hug, dry clothes, and expertly blown-dry hair. There’s shared hot cocoa and more newspaper-folding. (This time, a jet’s photo appears.) Digitally rendered in grays accented in yellow, the pictures’ hyper-realistic style is softened by dry-brush effects and the boy’s captured emotions. The penultimate composition looks through the open doorway to the boy on the front porch. Now in shorts and T-shirt, clutching a paper airplane, he’s silhouetted against a square of brilliant yellow sky. That yellow dominates the final spread, celebrating housetops, as the boy readies for his first launch.
Lovely and life-affirming. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1524-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
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