A moving glimpse into a not-very-long-past injustice.
When the Indian agent comes for Irene and her brothers, their parents reluctantly give them up to be taken to one of Canada’s infamous residential schools.
At the school, Irene is separated from her brothers, scrubbed, shorn, and assigned a number: 759. When she and another girl exchange words in Ojibwa, a nun punishes Irene for speaking “the devil’s language.” The punishment is horrifying: she is made to hold a bedpan filled with hot coals. The year passes slowly, chapel preferable to chores and lessons, especially as she can see her brothers there. At home the next summer, Irene tells her father, the community’s chief, about the “lessons” taught at “that horrible place”—and when the Indian agent comes again in the fall, the children hide while he tells the agent, “You will NEVER. TAKE MY CHILDREN. AWAY. AGAIN!” By the time readers get to this place in the story, they will have gotten past the stiff beginning and occasional overwriting and will be as relieved as Irene at their rescue. Newland’s watercolors capture the warmth of this Anishinaabe family and the austerity of the boarding school; the scene in which Irene’s father stares down the agent will have children cheering. Dupuis and Kacer base the story on the experiences of Dupuis’ grandmother, and they provide further information on the residential schools in an author’s note.
A moving glimpse into a not-very-long-past injustice. (Picture book. 7-11)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-927583-94-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Second Story Press
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Deliberately inspirational and tinged with nostalgia, this will please fans but may strike others as overly idealistic.
Veteran picture-book creator Polacco tells another story from her childhood that celebrates the importance of staying true to one’s own interests and values.
After years of spending summers with her father and grandmother, narrator Trisha is excited to be spending the school year in Michigan with them. Unexpectedly abandoned by her summertime friends, Trisha quickly connects with fellow outsiders Thom and Ravanne, who may be familiar to readers from Polacco’s The Junkyard Wonders (2010). Throughout the school year, the three enjoy activities together and do their best to avoid school bully Billy. While a physical confrontation between Thom (aka “Sissy Boy”) and Billy does come, so does an opportunity for Thom to defy convention and share his talent with the community. Loosely sketched watercolor illustrations place the story in the middle of the last century, with somewhat old-fashioned clothing and an apparently all-White community. Trisha and her classmates appear to be what today would be called middle schoolers; a reference to something Trisha and her mom did when she was “only eight” suggests that several years have passed since that time. As usual, the lengthy first-person narrative is cozily conversational but includes some challenging vocabulary (textiles, lackeys, foretold). The author’s note provides a brief update about her friends’ careers and encourages readers to embrace their own differences. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Deliberately inspirational and tinged with nostalgia, this will please fans but may strike others as overly idealistic. (Picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-2622-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
The story feels a bit contrived, but Ada will be a welcome addition to the small circle of science-loving girls in the...
Using science and technology, third-grader Ada Lace kicks off her new series by solving a mystery even with her leg in a cast.
Temporarily housebound after a badly executed bungee jump, Ada uses binoculars to document the ecosystem of her new neighborhood in San Francisco. She records her observations in a field journal, a project that intrigues new friend Nina, who lives nearby. When they see that Ms. Reed’s dog, Marguerite, is missing, they leap to the conclusion that it has been stolen. Nina does the legwork and Ada provides the technology for their search for the dognapper. Story-crafting takes a back seat to scene-setting in this series kickoff that introduces the major players. As part of the series formula, science topics and gadgetry are integrated into the stories and further explained in a “Behind the Science” afterword. This installment incorporates drones, a wireless camera, gecko gloves, and the Turing test as well as the concept of an ecosystem. There are no ethnic indicators in the text, but the illustrations reveal that Ada, her family, and bratty neighbor Milton are white; Nina appears to be Southeast Asian; and Mr. Peebles, an inventor who lives nearby, is black.
The story feels a bit contrived, but Ada will be a welcome addition to the small circle of science-loving girls in the chapter-book world. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8599-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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