Hopkins selects 14 child-appealing poems centered on the allure of museums and their treasures. Most poems speculate about precious artifacts of the past, as in “Suit of Armor,” by Beverly McLoughland and “The Moccasins,” by Kristine O’Connell George. Others, such as Hopkins’s titular poem and the apt closer, “Museum Farewell,” by Rebecca Kai Dotlich, focus on the experience of the museum as trove, itself precious and tinged with mystery. Dressen-McQueen’s full-bleed, mixed-media treatments are uneven. Winning portrayals of wriggling, dancing multicultural children against pleasing color fields contrast with spreads in which pastiches of artifacts appear crowded and muddy. A delightful poem by Alice Schertle, “O Trilobite,” garners an intriguing treatment: Trilobites of varying sizes array colorfully against the blue-black of the deep sea. The illustration for “Journey of the Woolly Mammoth” seems stylistically unrelated to others, looking more like a sketch than a finished piece. Still, the poems are well chosen, the little field-trippers sweet and the topic rather thinly covered in the literature. Buy where needed. (Picture book/poetry. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-1204-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2007
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
A magnificent creation myth, reflective and reverential.
The cosmos is within us, and this ethereal origin story sprinkles philosophical star stuff on every page.
Stars spring up from “a web of inky endlessness.” They multiply, “cast across endless time,” and eventually gather into a dusky blue-skied planet populated with not only animals and “tree and root and seed” but also indulgences like garlands, beds, and fluttering books. Still, a trail of stars from the sky cascades deep underground before reversing course “so life could reach back to the darkness,” the inexorable cycle of life revealing no beginning or end but an indomitable recurring connection among all life. Dark whorls of bruised-black paint on fully saturated pages play host to delicate details like arcing constellations and a flotilla of starships, the spreads revealed to be smaller sections of one massive and glorious artwork rendered in the golden ratio. The unseen narrator’s spare and conceptually sophisticated text sets a lyrically tranquil if mature tone, and frequent anthropomorphization of the stars and their evolution keeps the story more mythlike than cosmographic. This profoundly beautiful and thought-provoking pick offers a beatific view of the birth of the universe and makes a moving selection for contemplative readers who connect deeply with Marion Dane Bauer and Ekua Holmes’ The Stuff of Stars (2018).
A magnificent creation myth, reflective and reverential. (author’s note) (Picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9781592704910
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
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