``My mama sings me no new songs./We get along with used tunes,'' begins this young African-American's lyrical description of Mama's melodies. There's one for daffodil time; ``the same soft blues/her mama taught her'' for hot summer nights; Grandpa's clicking cricket song when the leaves fall; an old commercial on laundry days. Then, when ``Mama's boss...sends her away,'' Mama stops singing; but the boy makes up a comforting new song, and even though Mama's still blue she sings it back to him. Lovely as an old song, Peterson's words are beautifully extended in Speidel's richly luminous pastel art, where the boy and his mother share work, music, and a sense of their family history in perfect amity. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: May 30, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-023854-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
None
One more myth dispelled for all the students who believe that their teachers live in their classrooms. During the last week of school, Mrs. Hartwell and her students reflect on the things they will miss, while also looking forward to the fun that summer will bring. The kids want to cheer up their teacher, whom they imagine will be crying over lesson plans and missing them all summer long. But what gift will cheer her up? Numerous ideas are rejected, until Eddie comes up with the perfect plan. They all cooperate to create a rhyming ode to the school year and their teacher. Love’s renderings of the children are realistic, portraying the diversity of modern-day classrooms, from dress and expression to gender and skin color. She perfectly captures the emotional trauma the students imagine their teachers will go through as they leave for the summer. Her final illustration hysterically shatters that myth, and will have every teacher cheering aloud. What a perfect end to the school year. (Picture book. 5-8)
None NonePub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-58089-046-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
“Little Shop of Horrors” for the teddy bear set? Not at all, despite similarities: in this warmhearted tale, a tropical plant with a taste for meat goes from scary houseguest to beloved family member. Nolen (Max and Jax in Second Grade, p. 342, etc.) sketches the plot in a series of letters from young Mortimer Henryson and his parents to Mortimer’s science teacher, Mr. Lester. Having sat next to “Plantcilia” all through third grade, Mortimer begs permission to bring it home for the summer, but after it proves to be both mobile and carnivorous (the family Chihuahua vanishes), his mother is beseeching Mr. Lester to take it back. With characteristic comic extravagance, Catrow (We the Kids, p. 564, etc.) fleshes out the details in a series of frenetic scenes increasingly crowded with long, snaky tendrils, ragged leaves, and bulbous green appendages with ominously toothy rims. As the summer goes on, however, Plantzilla proves less a menace than an eager asset, as capable of playing field hockey with Mortimer as jazz for his boogying parents—even spitting out the unharmed dog and, ultimately, writing a letter of its own: “PEEEple Gooood. I wil sta widdem fro ever!” Readers, plant-lovers or otherwise, will find this vegetative visitor taking root in their affections too. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-15-202412-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Whistle/Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2002
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
