A graceful, inspiring children’s book about horseback riding.
Mackey’s (Sally Loves…to Dance!, 2014, etc.) third series installment follows a young girl’s dream of riding in a rodeo.
Sally dreams of riding in the barrel races and practices her skills with her horse, Dillon, under the guidance of a horse trainer. After she has her first fall, she becomes part of the “Dusty Bottoms Club,” but the other girls at the ranch help her up and celebrate her efforts as the mark of a determined rider. Sally’s love for horses is unqualified and pure: “To her, their beauty and strength are magical.” And the girls, for whom horses are a shared and stimulating bond, form a sisterhood: “The riders at Ladysmith spend a lot of time together. They laugh and hug. They are always happy, and everyone really loves horses.” Readers will appreciate the supportive, promising advice of the horse trainer, which leads to the story’s ending: “Remember all your training. Ease into the barrels, sit hard for the turns, and then let him go.” This book invites young readers to indulge their passions for horseback riding and to learn some terms of the sport along the way; for example, footnotes define “Western style,” “trot and lope,” “curry,” and “leadline.” Charming pictures of life at Ladysmith Ranch appear on every page and direct readers through the story. They’ll also catch glimpses of butterflies, birds, a cricket, a frog, a rabbit, a mouse, and a wonderful white cat; it’s a pleasure to scan the scenes for these little creatures, as each one adds a touch of specificity and whimsy to the fairly simple presentation. Dark outlines surround bright, medium-hued watercolor-style images, which have just enough facial detail to distinguish Sally from her best friend, Cheza, whose grandmother owns the ranch. Distinctive markings contrast Dillon, the gentle and familiar horse, with Duke, a bigger, more spirited animal. The difference in the horses’ temperaments, in fact, is almost a story of its own.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 60
Publisher: Champ Youth, Inc.
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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