A sweet middle-grade novel about the power of art.
A 13-year-old girl discovers a new passion after a terrible car accident in the first book in the Sourland Mountain series for preteens.
Catalynd “Cat” Hamilton is facing big changes. Her beloved older brother, Buddy, is heading off to college in Florida, far from their home on Sourland Mountain near Princeton, New Jersey, and in order to pay for his education, her parents have rented the barn that was her go-to spot for play and thinking. One day in late summer, an errand run is complicated by a thunderstorm, and the car containing Cat and her mother hits a tree. Now wheelchair-bound for several weeks, Cat finds her life altered as her mother morphs from sunny and productive to barely being able to get out of bed. Curiosity and a school project lead Cat to a friendship with her family’s tenant, Benton Whitman. An artist named for Thomas Hart Benton, Cat’s new pal and mentor helps her with a project on Andrew Wyeth’s painting Christina’s World, which depicts a young woman who “had lost almost all of her ability to walk.” As Cat adjusts to using a wheelchair and to missing her brother, she discovers a new love for drawing and painting and a way to channel this passion into her everyday life. Meanwhile, Cat learns to connect with the people around her, particularly her mother, who is feeling her own effects from the fateful car crash. McGlothlin, the author of Andy’s Snowball Story (2010), has degrees in art history and English, and her knowledge of both storytelling and painting is on full display. Though Cat tends to come off as younger than 13 (and her age is not revealed until Page 42), her emotions and challenges feel authentic to the book’s target middle-grade audience. Cat’s mentor Benton radiates kindness, and her mother’s touching battle with depression rings true. In the backmatter, the author lists several resources on related topics ranging from Walt Whitman (whose words appear in the book) to mental health.
A sweet middle-grade novel about the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73328-650-3
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Sourland Mountain Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey.
Separated from his pack, Swift, a young wolf, embarks on a perilous search for a new home.
Swift’s mother impresses on him early that his “pack belongs to the mountains and the mountains belong to the pack.” His father teaches him to hunt elk, avoid skunks and porcupines, revere the life that gives them life, and “carry on” when their pack is devastated in an attack by enemy wolves. Alone and grieving, Swift reluctantly leaves his mountain home. Crossing into unfamiliar territory, he’s injured and nearly dies, but the need to run, hunt, and live drives him on. Following a routine of “walk-trot-eat-rest,” Swift traverses prairies, canyons, and deserts, encountering men with rifles, hunger, thirst, highways, wild horses, a cougar, and a forest fire. Never imagining the “world could be so big or that I could be so alone in it,” Swift renames himself Wander as he reaches new mountains and finds a new home. Rife with details of the myriad scents, sounds, tastes, touches, and sights in Swift/Wander’s primal existence, the immediacy of his intimate, first-person, present-tense narration proves deeply moving, especially his longing for companionship. Realistic black-and-white illustrations trace key events in this unique survival story, and extensive backmatter fills in further factual information about wolves and their habitat.
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey. (additional resources, map) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-289593-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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