When Rosalie is born, her grandfather plants a rose bush in the garden. As she grows, Papa, as she calls him, teaches her to garden, even putting stinky dead fish in the ground to nourish the seeds. The neighbors say Papa has a green thumb, but Rosalie is relieved to see that their thumbs stay brown! But she notices as Papa’s cough gets more frequent, his braid grayer, and his face more wrinkled. He has her dig the dead plants under so that they will, like the fish, enrich the ground: in a garden, he says, “Nothing ever really leaves.” When her grandfather dies, Rosalie dreams of him in a heavenly garden, where the roses are—not pink, yellow, and red like hers—but blue, like the ones she had begged for as a child. When she and her mother go to tend Papa’s grave a year later, she finds the roses planted there are blue, just as in her dream. Newcomer Boyden’s prose is filled with color and imagery and impasto acrylics give a wonderful hieratic quality to the pictures. The small house, the well-loved garden, the profusion of roses, and Native American Rosalie and her family are formed of strong geometric shapes and richly colored patterns. A gentle story of family ties, loss, and dreams. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-58430-037-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2002
One of the watershed moments in African-American history—the defeat of James Braddock at the hands of Joe Louis—is here given an earnest picture-book treatment. Despite his lack of athletic ability, Sammy wants desperately to be a great boxer, like his hero, getting boxing lessons from his friend Ernie in exchange for help with schoolwork. However hard he tries, though, Sammy just can’t box, and his father comforts him, reminding him that he doesn’t need to box: Joe Louis has shown him that he “can be the champion at anything [he] want[s].” The high point of this offering is the big fight itself, everyone crowded around the radio in Mister Jake’s general store, the imagined fight scenes played out in soft-edged sepia frames. The main story, however, is so bent on providing Sammy and the reader with object lessons that all subtlety is lost, as Mister Jake, Sammy’s father, and even Ernie hammer home the message. Both text and oil-on-canvas-paper illustrations go for the obvious angle, making the effort as a whole worthy, but just a little too heavy-handed. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58430-161-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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