An extraordinary piece to be shared with utmost care.
An examination of trauma-borne bravery.
Two rabbits—mother and child—look out onto an abstract, red-tinged landscape as they engage in weighty bedtime conversation. The pair have been displaced by war, and though they’re now safe from immediate danger, young Bunny struggles to make sense of the horrors they’ve both witnessed while grappling with a conflict at school that evokes similar unease. Illustrations render gun-toting soldiers and schoolyard bullies—all members of the animal kingdom—as they enact cruelties; these successive brutalities prompt Bunny to contend with consequential questions. Is one iniquity really so different from another, the child wonders? And how much is the “right amount” of responsive courage? But Mama’s message is clear—fear isn’t proof of weakness, nor is it an experience unique to those who have seen bloodshed. Rather, fear is a tool that can be used bravely and by anyone, a force for restoring goodness when bolstered by courageous action. A sweeping treatise on atrocity and resilience, Sénéchal’s text, translated from French, is dialogic and profound; Rea’s art, with its innovative composition and gorgeous jewel-toned colorwork, is similarly intense. Backgrounds largely done in shades of crimson set a nightmarish tone, and several scenes clearly depict the pain and suffering explicitly referenced in the narrative. The result is undeniably striking and especially timely in its release, but adults should weigh reader sensitivities before selecting this story.
An extraordinary piece to be shared with utmost care. (Picture book. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781990252372
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Milky Way Picture Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
SEEN & HEARD
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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