Wallace tells a story about his grandfather, who worked in the mines. It is a touching tale about the son of a coal miner, who goes with his father for the first time to work underground. “You’ll be a good miner, boy,” says the father. “You have coal in your blood same as me.” His mother tells him, “Take care, my son. You know the deeps is dangerous.” Father and son file into a steel cage and are lowered into the darkness with all the other miners. It is exhausting work, and the boy falls asleep during lunch. While they are working in the afternoon, the ceiling in the mine collapses, knocking them to the ground, and giving them a scare as they dig themselves out. “They headed toward the steel cage, the light, and home. Tomorrow they would go down into the deeps again, for they were miners and that was their job.” Wallace’s simple and direct language gives the story power; the textured and shadowy illustrations, as still as photographs, convey what it was like to grow up long ago, when a boy went to do a man’s work, and toiled willingly alongside his Da. (Picture book. 6-11)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7894-2569-6
Page Count: 36
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
A fine counterpoint of wistful ache and be-bop sparkle informs this story about shaking the blues. A girl wakes to an urban morning, her elemental funk reflected in the lonely, sagging laundry line seen across the street from her window. “That’s such a sorrowful line./It’s droppin’ down so lowly/even pigeons pass it by.” Her bubbly sister will not let her mope and tries a little jazzy word music: “Sweet potato!/Rutabaga!/That’ll work fine!/We can play together/with the laundry line!” Her persistence pays off—it’s not long before that piece of rope has been transformed from a study in malaise to a Double-Dutch four-step workout. Davenier’s watercolors are charmingly atmospheric, perfectly suited to Millen’s spirit-raising verse; the two will work magic on any down-at-the-mouth child. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-87497-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-531-33141-5 In what amounts to a novel in poems, a narrator, 11, declares his satisfaction at “Being The Youngest,” introduces his big brother (“God’s Gift to Girls”), who later has a scary brush with death, watches his grandmother plant tulip bulbs “in that dirty confusion/of bulb and knuckle,/knuckle and bulb,” observes several relatives at a huge family reunion, tracks his mother’s pregnancy, and, after his sister is born, finds pleasure in “Being A Middle Child,” too. In easygoing free verse that hides no meanings behind oblique imagery or language, Fletcher (Ordinary Things, 1997, etc.) creates a close-knit, recognizable cast; Krudop’s small pen-and-ink still lifes of food and common household items evoke an air of intimate, everyday domesticity. Children will enjoy reading or listening to these linked episodes of high drama, low comedy, and comforting human contact. (Poetry. 8-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30141-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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