With a daughter's fitting reverence, Lasky tells the story of her father, Marven, who was sent away from his family at the age of ten to work in a logging camp. Duluth, Minnesota, is plagued with influenza in the winter of 1918, so Marven's parents send off their only son to the great north woods for the winter. As the train pulls away, Marven is in the middle of nowhere; he must ski five miles to meet his new employer. The young boy is given the job of bookkeeping and the daunting task of waking the lumberjacks who linger in bed in the morning. Marven grows close to Jean-Louis, the giant sleepyhead of the bunch. Hawkes's illustrations are as moving and effective as the story, especially when Marven appears in the snowy loneliness of the north country. Hawkes characterizes the burly lumberjacks with humor and style, cleverly contrasting them with Marven's childlike innocence. Unlike Gary Paulsen's bittersweet northland novella, The Cookcamp (1991), over which hangs a vague sense of unease, this book is a happy adventure that brims with rugged excitement. (Picture book. 6-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-15-200104-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1997
Brother Theophane copies manuscripts in his monastery in “the mountains of Mourne,” but he also hides crumbs in his sleeve to sprinkle on the windowsill for the birds, and sometimes he gazes too long at the sun dancing on the pages before him. In simple rhyme, Millen conveys how, when woolgathering Theophane is banished to make ink, he finds berries, hazel wood, crocus and cabbage leaves to make many colors. The brown-garbed monks, turned from their brown inks to colors, renew their illuminations to reflect the many-hued world. The text includes a few verses in Theophane’s voice, which are based on scraps of poems written by Irish monks of the Middle Ages. Wisnewski’s gorgeous hand-colored prints are composed of strong black line and interlaced color and pattern. There are echoes of the Book of Kells and other Celtic illumination, but children will especially respond to the borders of apples and berries, the patterned stonework and the black-and-white cat that appears on almost every page. (author’s note, bibliography, websites) (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-179-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Life on the generic American frontier, as imagined by a capable, prolific British picture-book author (Farmer Duck, p. 401), is dominated by calamities: in the first of four easily read chapters, Little Obie and Grandad rescue Obie's friend Marty, who has barely survived the flood that killed her pa and washed away the cabin where Little Obie and his grandparents live; the orphaned Marty pines until Effie (Little Obie's grandmother) is bitten by a hog and Marty pitches in with needed help. Later, the two save the life of Old Gerd, who's ``building a cabin all on his own'' and gets trapped beneath a tree. Pleasant open format and soft pencil drawings signal Wilder territory; but though the relationships are wholesome and the events certainly exciting, there is virtually no sense of real historical time or place here; and, while Waddell is fairly skillful in sprinkling his text with down-homey names and turns of phrase, the American accent is not quite convincing. At best, adequate supplementary reading. (Fiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1992
ISBN: 1-56402-106-8
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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