A fine work that should keep young readers engaged with fun and amusing subjects while providing a foundation for thoughtful...
A debut collection of rhyming stories centers on the lives of children in an effort to both entertain and educate.
Cooper’s series of “quirky tales” relayed in this work range from dentures that talk by themselves to soap suds that cause a school’s cancellation and a list of overly strict recess rules. The protagonists are generally children or their parents, grandparents, or teachers, and the stories frequently resolve in a whimsical fashion. At the end of each poem there is a question for young readers and adults to reflect on and consider. There is a list of general questions at the end about the book as a whole as well as more in-depth questions for each story. The text is punctuated by black-and-white stock photographs, mostly of diverse children enacting the various events of each tale. There are intentional incidents of a poem’s rhyme scheme or meter changing in an effort to allow readers to identify switches in style. But this occasionally makes the work feel uneven. For example, on the very first page, the line “As the water came near, he showed no fear” is stuck between two sets of rhyming pairs, adding an extra line to the established number per stanza and throwing the verse off-balance. But the author, who is a retired school system reading supervisor, provides lively subject matter that should appeal to early readers, allowing for an enjoyable learning activity to be undertaken with adult supervision. The questions at the end of each poem and at the book’s conclusion are insightful, and they encourage youngsters to read deeper than they might have without guidance. This volume is equally valuable as a tool for teachers in presenting their lessons or for parents in helping to boost their children’s reading comprehension.
A fine work that should keep young readers engaged with fun and amusing subjects while providing a foundation for thoughtful reading practices.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4808-4762-0
Page Count: 108
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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