With war an ever-present possibility and uncertain of their future, Hope and her family struggle to survive in Philadelphia in 1776. Part of the My America series and a sequel to Five Smooth Stones: Hope’s Diary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1776 (not reviewed), Hope’s latest journal entries find her family in the country having fled from the turmoil of the city. Hope’s brother has run off to fight with the Red Coats and was thrown into prison as a spy. Her father is fighting as a patriot, but he has not been home in more than a year. With a new baby to care for and worries about the state of their home, Hope’s mother returns all of them to the city where they must survive persecution from the invading British troops and the continuing threat of war. Desperate to have some normalcy in their lives, they reopen their bakery, and Hope returns to school. Soon, British soldiers overrun their home and Hope’s father returns from the front with stories and scars from the battles he has seen. Hope learns that her father has joined the Sons of Liberty, and she fears that they may not survive the coming months. Strong imagery and well-researched details make this an engrossing as well as educational selection. Readers will eagerly await the next installment. (Fiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-439-21039-9
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-531-33140-7 Ketcham’s first book is based on an allegedly true story of a childhood incident in the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. It starts with a couple of pages regaling the Bach home and all the Johanns in the family, who made their fame through music. After his father’s death, Johann Sebastian goes to live with his brother, Johann Christoph, where he boasts that he is the best organist in the world. Johann Christoph contradicts him: “Old Adam Reincken is the best.” So Johann Sebastian sets out to hear the master himself. In fact, he is humbled to tears, but there is hope that he will be the world’s best organist one day. Johann Sebastian emerges as little more than a brat, Reincken as more of a suggestion than a character. Bush’s illustrations are most transporting when offering details of the landscape, but his protagonist is too impish to give the story much authority. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30140-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
Adler (also with Widener, Lou Gehrig, 1997, etc.) sets his fictional story during the week of July 14, 1932, in the Bronx, when the news items that figure in this tale happened. A boy gets a dime for his birthday, instead of the bicycle he longs for, because it is the Great Depression, and everyone who lives in his neighborhood is poor. While helping his friend Jacob sell newspapers, he discovers that his own father, who leaves the house with a briefcase each day, is selling apples on Webster Avenue along with the other unemployed folk. Jacob takes the narrator to Yankee Stadium with the papers, and people don’t want to hear about the Coney Island fire or the boy who stole so he could get something to eat in jail. They want to hear about Babe Ruth and his 25th homer. As days pass, the narrator keeps selling papers, until the astonishing day when Ruth himself buys a paper from the boy with a five-dollar bill and tells him to keep the change. The acrylic paintings bask in the glow of a storied time, where even row houses and the elevated train have a warm, solid presence. The stadium and Webster Avenue are monuments of memory rather than reality in a style that echoes Thomas Hart Benton’s strong color and exaggerated figures. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201378-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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