Blue Dog is one in a menagerie of toy farm animals in the collection of Big Billy, a gentle boy much taken with his cows and hens and horses. He loves putting the pig in the hayloft and the rooster on the barn roof, but most of all Big Billy likes to play with Blue Dog. He starts taking him everywhere: school, a real farm, to bed. Van Leeuwen (Hannah of Fairfield, p. 73, etc.) makes it clear from the outset that Blue Dog is a surrogate, though a beloved one: “The moon rose. A soft beam of light reached down from the sky, coming to rest on Big Billy’s pillow. Big Billy sighed. And suddenly Blue Dog felt the room flooded with longing.” Then, after a portentous out-of-body experience, Blue Dog wakes to find another, rather larger dog in residence. He grows even happier, because his life on the farm has taken on a curious dose of reality, and Big Billy has not forgotten him—they still bunk together. Van Leeuwen gets the sense of yearning just right, balanced between a healthy hankering for the new and continued respect for (and joy in) the old. Ventura’s highly realistic artwork makes grand gestures toward the dramatic, but artfully remains true to the story line. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8037-1878-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
From Johnston (An Old Shell, 1999, etc.), poetic phrases that follow a ghostly barn owl through days and nights, suns and moons. Barn owls have been nesting and roosting, hunting and hatching in the barn and its surroundings for as long as the barn has housed spiders, as long as the wheat fields have housed mice, “a hundred years at least.” The repetition of alliterative words and the hushed hues of the watercolors evoke the soundless, timeless realm of the night owl through a series of spectral scenes. Short, staccato strings of verbs describe the age-old actions and cycles of barn owls, who forever “grow up/and sleep/and wake/and blink/and hunt for mice.” Honey-colored, diffused light glows in contrast to the star-filled night scenes of barn owls blinking awake. A glimpse into the hidden campestral world of the elusive barn owl. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-88106-981-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
The gastronomical oddity of eating winged and many-legged creatures is fleetingly examined in a superficial text that looks at animals and people who eat insects. Bugs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner are gobbled up by a shrew, an aardvark, a bear, a gecko, and others. The rhyme scheme limits the information presented; specificity about the types of insects eaten is sacrificed for the sake of making the rhyme flow, e.g., a mouse, a trout, a praying mantis, a nuthatch, and a bat are repeatedly said to eat “bugs” or “insects” in general, rather than naming the mayflies, moths, or grubs they enjoy. An author’s note explains her choice of the word bugs for all crawly things; an addendum takes care of other particulars lacking in the text. Long’s exacting pen-and-ink style lends a naturalistic perfection to this visual playground of the insect world, enhancing this glimpse of vital link in the food chain. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-88106-271-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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