In simply worded verse, George (Little Dog and Duncan, not reviewed, etc.) writes of lockers and lunches, new friends and typical experiences, as she tracks a child’s first year of middle school. She invites readers stepping across that (or any) threshold to embrace change: “Where do I fit? / Nothing is clear. / Can already tell / this will be / a jigsaw year” becomes, in “Long Jump,” “I can do anything. / All I need / is a running start,” and by “Last Day of School,” “I am shining / from the inside out.” Aside from a superficial poem about “the boy who’s so tough / the one who scares us so much,” plus a few passing anxieties, there’s little sign of tears or fears here—just a growing sense of self-confidence, a promise of good things to come calculated, and apt, to buoy up young grammar school graduates. Illustrations not seen. (Poetry. 10-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2002
ISBN: 0-618-15250-4
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
From Wong (The Rainbow Hand, p. 231, etc.), a collection of 15 soulful poems that commands attention and keeps until the end, with a canny, singular take on the familiar imagery of dreamtime. These are episodes of remembrance and genesis, falling and flying, of speaking an unknown language with facility, of the bite of an inexorable nightmare. Short and vivid, the poems urge readers to “pull/at the air around you/when you wake,/pull and gulp it down” to keep alive the presence of the departed who have just visited the dreamer. Wong can be skip-quick to suggest evanescence, or her words can flutter with fear; she can be exquisitely funny, as when a sibling eavesdrops on a sister who is talking and laughing in her sleep—about the eavesdropper. Paschkis is equal to the task of illustrating these poems, with two-page spreads presented as mirror-image two-toned diptychs, bursting with glyphs and portents across dream-crazed backgrounds, with the text scrolling across one page and the full-color image undulating from the other. (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-689-82617-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-06-028114-6 An Edward Lear Alphabet (32 pp.; $14.95, PLB $14.89; Apr. 30; 0-06-028113-8, PLB 0-06-028114-6): By injecting Lear’s alphabet with vivid shots of color and joyful graphics, Radunsky blasts this Victorian verse into the 21st century. For some readers, Lear’s rhymes on their own border on precious: “J was once a jar of jam/Jammy/Mammy/Clammy/Jammy/Sweet Swammy/Jar of Jam.” However, juxtaposed with an acid-blue background, topped with a bright yellow lid, and designated with a green and orange letter J, this jam jar jumps. The colors and graphics add a very effective jolt to this silly, quite old, ABC. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: April 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028113-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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