The summer following third grade, Meribah Knight and her noted author-photographer parents (Dinosaur Dig, 1990) made a pilgrimage to some of the sites in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Dakota that she had read about in the ``Little House'' books. The trip is recorded here in excerpts from Meribah's diary, in her mother's evocative prose, and in her father's lucid color photos. The whole successfully communicates a child's view of this attempted journey into the past; but because the focus is as much on the contemporary girl as on the long-ago Laura, the book isn't particularly informative. Readers with more than a cursory interest in the subject will prefer William Anderson's Laura Ingalls Wilder Country (1990). (Nonfiction/Picture book. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 29, 1993
ISBN: 0-02-751666-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1993
A sneeze and a cow kicking over the milk launches this true tale of a 17-year-old dairymaid in England in 1683; Molly was subsequently accused of stealing her lordship’s milk and brought before a court. Sentenced to seven years of bondage in America, she then struck out on her own, staked a claim and raised tobacco. She bought an African slave named Bannaky, who taught her about irrigation and crop rotation; when they fell in love, she freed him so that they could be legally married. Molly eventually taught her grandson, the famed Benjamin Banneker, how to read and write. McGill’s telling is fine and sure, except for an unwieldy flashback in the beginning that explains a previous spilling of milk. Soentpiet adds to the drama of the story with bold, atmospheric paintings. The problem comes in the matching of text to art; the pacing, for children, is horrible at first, with a scene of Molly facing a courtroom of stone-faced men before she has even spilled the milk (the text to gets the courtroom mid- paragraph). Later, the scene of her working for someone else with two oxen is too similar to her striking out on her own with one ox; the scene of her realizing she can’t manage on her own shows several other people working alongside her. These don’t destroy the suspense, but will compromise the accessibility of the story for children. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-72287-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
While Josephine Poole and Angela Barrett’s Joan of Arc (1998) focused on Joan as a saint, this spirited but reverent telling emphasizes Joan as a hero. In the little village of DomrÇmy, Joan did not learn to read or write, but she listened to stories of the saints’ great deeds, worked with her parents, and aided the sick. When St. Michael the Archangel first appeared to her in a great light, she was 13; he told her she would save France, and the people supported her, outfitting her with horse and armor, and a white banner with the golden lilies that symbolized the French king. All the highlights of Joan’s story are elegantly recounted here: her recognition of the king hidden in the crowd, her victory at OrlÇans, Charles’s coronation, her capture, abandonment, trial, and death by burning at the stake. Rayevsky’s drypoint and etching illustrations use the muted colors and sepia backgrounds of old prints; the simple, sinuous line and stylized faces are particularly evocative. His visual trope of a flowerlike flame in the fireplace of Joan’s home is startlingly recreated in the final image of Joan at the stake. (Picture book/biography. 6-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1424-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
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