First- and third-graders Jake and Abigail alternate as narrators to describe a series of trips: boogie boarding at the beach, riding the Gravitron at an amusement park, visiting the emergency room, losing each other in the mall and canoeing the Everglades. The focus is always on the siblings, although adults—extended family and in one case a babysitter—accompany them. A bonus episode is told by the cat, Fluzzy, whose response to their trips is completely convincing. Each story is simply told with quiet humor, sometimes more a vignette than a rounded narrative—but, as always, Blume gets right to the hearts of her characters, revealing their fears, their resentments and their affection for each other. Stevenson’s grey-washed cartoon illustrations enliven the pages. Each chapter can stand on its own, making this particularly accessible for the struggling reader. This is the third of a projected quartet of chapter books, sure to be welcomed as enthusiastically as its predecessors were. (Fiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-385-73307-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2008
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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In describing how his parents met, Say continues to explore the ways that differing cultures can harmonize; raised near San Francisco and known as May everywhere except at home, where she is Masako, the child who will grow up to be Say’s mother becomes a misfit when her family moves back to Japan. Rebelling against attempts to force her into the mold of a traditional Japanese woman, she leaves for Osaka, finds work as a department store translator, and meets Joseph, a Chinese businessman who not only speaks English, but prefers tea with milk and sugar, and persuades her that “home isn’t a place or a building that’s ready-made or waiting for you, in America or anywhere else.” Painted with characteristic control and restraint, Say’s illustrations, largely portraits, begin with a sepia view of a sullen child in a kimono, gradually take on distinct, subdued color, and end with a formal shot of the smiling young couple in Western dress. A stately cousin to Ina R. Friedman’s How My Parents Learned To Eat (1984), also illustrated by Say. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90495-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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The sultana of high-fructose sentimentality reminds readers that they really are all that.
Despite the title, we’re actually here for a couple of reasons. In fulsome if vague language Tillman embeds one message, that acts of kindness “may triple for days… / or set things in motion in different ways,” in a conceptually separate proposition that she summarizes thus: “perhaps you forgot— / a piece of the world that is precious and dear / would surely be missing if you weren’t here.” Her illustrations elaborate on both themes in equally abstract terms: a lad releases a red kite that ends up a sled for fox kits, while its ribbons add decorative touches to bird nests and a moose before finally being vigorously twirled by a girl and (startlingly) a pair of rearing tigers. Without transition the focus then shifts as the kite is abruptly replaced by a red ball. Both embodied metaphors, plus children and animals, gather at the end for a closing circle dance. The illustrator lavishes attention throughout on figures of children and wild animals, which are depicted with such microscopically precise realism that every fine hair and feather is visible, but she then floats them slightly above hazy, generic backdrops. The overall design likewise has a slapdash feel, as some spreads look relatively crowded with verses while others bear only a single line or phrase.
Patchy work, both visually and teleologically. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-05626-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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