A gifted storyteller and nature observer shares a rare adventure in letters and illustration. Science author/illustrator Dewey (Rattlesnake Dance, 2000, etc.) spent four months in Antarctica as part of a National Science Foundation grant. The journal entries, letters, sketches, and photographs she sent to her family and friends have been gathered here in a lively, humorous, true-life science adventure that will capture the imagination of would-be scientists and armchair travelers alike. There are appealing colored-pencil sketches of Antarctic animals on every page, along with photographs and maps. Letters describe both humorous events (like the curious penguins of Litchfield Island coming to snatch her typewriter paper) as well as dangerous ones (she fell into a crevasse of a glacier up to her shoulders, and “stared below into a blue-green hole cut with facets like a diamond”). Beauty, danger, and awe are evident throughout. Not to be confused with Meredith Hooper’s Antarctic Journal (2000). (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-028586-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
DePaola is irresistible. In this simply told memoir, aimed directly at the hearts of his young readers, he follows 26 Fairmount Avenue (1999) and Here We All Are (p. 630) with more stories of his childhood. In this volume, his baby sister Maureen contracts pneumonia and has to be hospitalized, he gets a new outfit for the family’s trip to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, and he’s in a tap dance recital. He longs to get Miss Kiniry to be his first-grade teacher, even though she, like the principal, insists on spelling his first name “Tommy.” Other remembrances include a family outing to the beach, a “Tiny Tot” wedding, and getting his first library card. DePaola spins out these recollections with pitch-perfect intensity, warmth, energy, and a precise sense of how it felt to be a kid. Almost a primer on how to write with emotional directness for young people, this will also teach its readers a little on how to tell their own stories. Best of all it gives value to the comings and goings that make up a life, even one as unique as dePaola’s. Abundantly illustrated with wonderful vignettes and spot drawings of the cast of characters that includes all his friends and relations, it begs to be continued. More please. (Biography. 7-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-23583-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Brilliantly colored photos and a lively text explore the human body from the outside in: muscles, bones, inner organs, eyes, ears, and much more. ``Your skin is like a stretchy bodysuit just your size,'' and ``Your blood is a kind of cell soup...''—just enough information is presented to pique the curiosity. The author concludes, ``There's a great body inside this book—yours! Take good care of it.'' Many of the photos are color-enhanced and enlarged; body parts have never looked so good, though it would have been helpful if degrees of magnification had been included. A beautiful book with special pizzazz. Glossary; index. (Nonfiction. 6-10)
Pub Date: May 30, 1991
ISBN: 0-312-05938-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1991
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