Just out of junior high school, Joe and his friend Crowbar are hired by Joe's uncle (Joe lives with him in a trailer) to run a dead man's ashes down a dangerous stretch of the Colorado River, traveling by night to avoid Park Service patrols, and to dump the urn of ashes overboard at Lava Falls. (Crowbar is of American Indian ancestry and Joe an undifferentiated white, and George makes a point of the boys not making a point of it.) But in the dumping process the boys' inflatable raft is wrecked, and after a wild ride down the falls they start climbing the cliff walls with an idea of heading for the Havasupai village they know to be somewhere about. A younger, speechless "Wild Boy" they run into shows them the way to food and water in return for Joe's show of affection; Joe and Crowbar hope the boy can show them to the village once Joe teaches him enough words, but there are setbacks due to Crowbar's impatient attempts to make a slave of the kid. After the three have lived for a while in a mini-village of their own, the wild boy does lead the others to the Supai, where he will stay with the village teacher and complete the civilizing process he is now eager to learn. Joe's uncle turns out to be a crook, indifferent to the boys' safety and concerned only with the urn—which, unsurprisingly, contained money and not dead Roland after all. George does better with the survival story and the feral child than with the dumb scheme that sets the trip in motion, but the relationships among the three boys conforms too patly to the author's own scheme, and this has none of the moving qualities of My Side of the Mountain or Julie of the Wolves.
Pub Date: April 17, 1979
ISBN: 0590321188
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1979
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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