Multiple Edgar Award–winning Nixon plunges her penguin sleuths (Gus & Gertie and the Missing Pearl, 2000) into a chilly new case. Clad in complementary flowered, rubber swim caps, Gus and Gertie make their way through a tent crowded with feathered and furred athletes to register for the Animal Winter Olympics—only to discover that synchronized swimming is not a winter event. Worse yet, Gertie’s lucky fish pin vanishes in the hubbub—as do all of the contenders’ lucky charms. Sharp-eyed camera bug Gus fingers (okay, flippers) the culprits—a pair of pack rats named Mugs and Thugs—thanks to a set of revealing Polaroids, then joins Gertie in a wild chase down snow-covered slopes to recover the loot. Not only are deGroat’s brightly colored illustrations just as action-packed as the plot, but she strews them with visual clues for alert young detectives to pick out. Gus and Gertie may not achieve their Olympian dream, but they’ll give Nate the Great, or Cam Jansen, a run for their money any day. (Fiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-58717-099-X
Page Count: 48
Publisher: SeaStar/North-South
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2001
PLB 0-688-16508-7 Buckley’s Josie, first spotted in 1962, is as sprightly as ever in Ormerod’s illustrations, nimbly eluding her family’s search. As Josie’s mother, father, and brother go looking for her around the house, they are accompanied by the musical wordplay: “Did she go inside the house—rosy house, posy house? Did she go inside the house? Is that where Josie is?” Readers can search along with Josie’s family, and will spy Josie’s legs under the table or behind a coat. Ormerod’s artwork is winsome, although the literalness of her visual narrative confines the poetry rather than liberating it. Yet the pulse of Buckley’s words is bewitching, and readers may even want to take them outside and jump rope to their beat: “Look! Is that a rosy nose, a dozy nose, a posy nose? And do you see two ribbon bows? Can you count? Are there ten toes?” (Picture book. 2-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-16507-9
Page Count: 24
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Adler (also with Widener, Lou Gehrig, 1997, etc.) sets his fictional story during the week of July 14, 1932, in the Bronx, when the news items that figure in this tale happened. A boy gets a dime for his birthday, instead of the bicycle he longs for, because it is the Great Depression, and everyone who lives in his neighborhood is poor. While helping his friend Jacob sell newspapers, he discovers that his own father, who leaves the house with a briefcase each day, is selling apples on Webster Avenue along with the other unemployed folk. Jacob takes the narrator to Yankee Stadium with the papers, and people don’t want to hear about the Coney Island fire or the boy who stole so he could get something to eat in jail. They want to hear about Babe Ruth and his 25th homer. As days pass, the narrator keeps selling papers, until the astonishing day when Ruth himself buys a paper from the boy with a five-dollar bill and tells him to keep the change. The acrylic paintings bask in the glow of a storied time, where even row houses and the elevated train have a warm, solid presence. The stadium and Webster Avenue are monuments of memory rather than reality in a style that echoes Thomas Hart Benton’s strong color and exaggerated figures. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201378-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
© 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.
