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IS MY FRIEND AT HOME?

Name: IS MY FRIEND AT HOME?
Author: John Bierhorst
ISBN: 0-374-33550-8

PUEBLO FIRESIDE TALES

adapted by John Bierhorst & illustrated by Wendy Watson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 2001

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This delightful and unusual collection of trickster tales was originally told in the Hopi pueblos of Arizona in the wintertime, “especially after dark when the Sun was traveling under the earth.” Watson’s light-hearted illustrations, many dusted with snow, capture both the moods and the settings of the tales, a world unexpectedly reminiscent of Wind in the Willows, with its cozy animal friendships, intrigues, and small adventures. Framed with traditional beginnings (“Shall I begin? YES”) and endings (“Now that’s the story”), seven short, interconnected stories tell of the friendships between Coyote, Badger, Mouse, Beetle, Mole, Snake, Dove, and Bee. Many are pourquoi stories, but the emphasis is on the animal characters and their relationships. In “Why a Mouse Walks Softly,” for example, Coyote and Beetle, tired of Mouse’s chatter and boasting, decide to “tangle” their friend up with a song that lets her know how noisy she has been. “From then on Mouse walked softly. And she is still doing it.” In “Beetle’s New Life,” Badger and Mole save Beetle—Badger with his medicine and Mole by building up his fire. With their lively dialogue, colorful expressions (“breath of friendship,” “white dawn,” “sound of healing”) and understated humor, these tales will be wonderful to read aloud and to discuss. A detailed note on sources is included. (Picture book folklore. 4+)

Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2001

ISBN: 0-374-33550-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE DEETKATOO
edited by John Bierhorst & illustrated by Ron Hilbert Coy

- BOOK REVIEW
THE DANCING FOX
edited by John Bierhorst & illustrated by Mary K. Okheena

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WAY OF THE EARTH
by John Bierhorst

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BIG APPLE DIARIES

by Alyssa Bermudez ; illustrated by Alyssa Bermudez ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 17, 2021

An authentic and moving time capsule of middle school angst, trauma, and joy.

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Through the author’s own childhood diary entries, a seventh grader details her inner life before and after 9/11.

Alyssa’s diary entries start in September 2000, in the first week of her seventh grade year. She’s 11 and dealing with typical preteen concerns—popularity and anxiety about grades—along with other things more particular to her own life. She’s shuffling between Queens and Manhattan to share time between her divorced parents and struggling with thick facial hair and classmates who make her feel like she’s “not a whole person” due to her mixed White and Puerto Rican heritage. Alyssa is endlessly earnest and awkward as she works up the courage to talk to her crush, Alejandro; gushes about her dreams of becoming a shoe designer; and tries to solve her burgeoning unibrow problem. The diaries also have a darker side, as a sense of impending doom builds as the entries approach 9/11, especially because Alyssa’s father works in finance in the World Trade Center. As a number of the diary entries are taken directly from the author’s originals, they effortlessly capture the loud, confusing feelings middle school brings out. The artwork, in its muted but effective periwinkle tones, lends a satisfying layer to the diary’s accessible and delightful format.

An authentic and moving time capsule of middle school angst, trauma, and joy. (author's note) (Graphic memoir. 8-13)

Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-250-77427-9

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORY

- BOOK REVIEW
IVELIZ EXPLAINS IT ALL
by Andrea Beatriz Arango ; illustrated by Alyssa Bermudez

- BOOK REVIEW
WE LAUGH ALIKE / JUNTOS NOS REÍMOS
by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand ; illustrated by Alyssa Bermudez

- BOOK REVIEW
MY SINGING NANA
by Pat Mora ; illustrated by Alyssa Bermudez

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HOLES

by Louis Sachar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...

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Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).

Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.

Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)