A dog story in the best tradition of the genre: he’s enormous, under threat, and will prove himself a hero. Sirius isn’t just any dog; he’s an enormous Newfoundland who swims the breaststroke, hauls firewood across ice, locates a lost brooch on demand, and faithfully follows his master’s commands. Maggie, 12, has just heard that all non-shepherding dogs have been outlawed; if found, Sirius will be shot on sight, even though he has never killed any sheep. Hiding her beloved dog in a cave, Maggie eventually has to expose his existence to save the lives of 100 people trapped aboard a capsizing steamer. Sirius’s ability to swim is required to exchange lines from the boat to shore; using a pulley-and-chair system, every last passenger is brought to land safely. Sirius is elevated to hero status and his future is assured. Readers will be captivated by the scope of this story, which includes events of 1912, e.g., the sinking of the Titanic, as well as Newfoundlander language and customs, facts about the dogs, and details of the island, known as “the Beautiful Rock.” (map) (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-689-82905-1
Page Count: 150
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
Swinburne sets out to teach young children about how shadows are created, describing night as a shadow on the earth, and giving children tangible reasons for why shadows vary in size, shape, and location. The latter half of the book invites readers to guess the origins of the shadows in vivid full-color photographs; subsequent pages provide the answers to the mysteries. A foreword contains information regarding the scientific reasons for shadows, which can be explained to small children, but it is the array of photographs that truly invites youngsters to take a closer look and analyze the world around them with an eye for the details. (Picture book/nonfiction. 3-5).
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-56397-724-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
Deliberately constructed, Wilson’s wordless picture book makes an adroit and whimsical artistic statement and invites audience participation. On the title page, a child’s hands reach toward a bundle of colored pencils dangling from a branch; the pencils are in bright colors but everything else is sketched in black and white. In careful detail, the child draws a magpie seen on a branch outside the window (perhaps the same branch where the pencils were hung) and when the drawing is completed, the bird flies away from the paper. The child draws cherries, shimmering red on the page, and the bird eats them; the child draws an orange balloon, which the bird pops. Things get a little dangerous when the bird grabs a piece of yellow that sets the page afire and then scribbles blue water that makes a mess. Drawings and events co-determine each other: the child has cages the magpie, the bird grabs the eraser through the bars and escapes the cage, and so it goes, to a last laugh when a claw seizes the pencils and makes a brilliant rainbow of feathers. The only words are the names of the colors, appearing at the end. The realistic drawing style and the use of saturated color on an otherwise black-and-white page are an arresting combination. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8037-2354-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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