In solemn Gullah cadences, an old woman passes on to a grandchild centuries of history embodied in the Sea Islands’ distinctive sweetgrass baskets, as in equally solemn watercolors, Lewis takes the tale from an ancestral African village, through the Middle Passage and slavery days, to changes brought by the automobile and distant modern wars. Powerfully evoking the passage of successive generations linked by the ancient skill to create rice-winnowing baskets or “sewn” so tightly that they can “hold the rain,” this elaborates on the equally poetic, but briefer and more impressionistic, account of the same history in Sandra Belton’s Beauty, Her Basket (2003). (afterword, bibliography) (Picture book. 7-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-374-31289-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Melanie Kroupa/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The lovable Díaz family has yet to disappoint.
Fourth grade is not for the faint of heart.
In Book 3 of the Stella Díaz series, Dominguez’s Ramona Quimby–esque heroine of Salvadoran and Mexican descent finds herself a tad overextended as she joins an art club, attempts to fulfill her presidential duties at the helm of the ocean-saving Sea Musketeers, and takes swim lessons with best friend Jenny. As if that weren’t enough, her mom is spending a suspicious amount of time with new neighbor Diego, and Stella is not sure how she feels about her mom having a maybe-boyfriend. Stella’s worry and exhaustion are palpable, but her enthusiasm for all of her hobbies is endearingly earnest. Middle-grade readers will get a taste of what’s to come when Stella and her older brother, Nick, compare extracurriculars as he begins to imagine applying to college. As with previous volumes, occasional Spanish words are presented in italics (a decision explained in the author’s note); they are typically accompanied by context clues or in-text translations, narrator Stella confiding to readers that she needs to work on her Spanish. Her overall vocabulary is robust, however, and she easily weaves in words such as guffaw, devious, and deduction that bolster her go-getter characterization. The Chicago setting and its vigorous Latinx community are well realized. The novel can easily be enjoyed without familiarity with previous books, and Dominguez’s black-and-white illustrations give transitioning readers’ eyes places to rest.
The lovable Díaz family has yet to disappoint. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-76308-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Full of heart and depth.
Billy Miller’s birthday wish, for “something exciting [to] happen,” attunes him to all kinds of excitement in his life.
Just after he blows out his candles, an ambulance roars down the street to the house of an elderly neighbor, and Billy later worries that his wish precipitated Mr. Tooley’s death. Billy is White, with a mother, father, and younger sister, Sal, whose singular personality dominates nearly everything around her. Sal’s plush whale Drop Sisters have been joined by a more portable quintet of whale-shaped erasers, the Drip Sisters. As with the moment when Billy thinks about how the air changes somewhere from summer warmth to cool on the steps to the basement, Henkes’ focus on small transitions in growing up and seeing the world acknowledges and celebrates the complex emotional life of childhood. Billy’s year of being 8 begins like a leaf unfolding, slow and steady, fed by the sunlight of loving parents and comfortable life. Twenty brief chapters chronicle the several days in which Billy misses the presence of his artist father, away at an art camp, inadvertently learns that his mother (and father) had a life before him, and helps his mother manage Sal. The sweet surprise of the summer (adult readers may recognize the clues), revealed when Papa returns, promises new and interesting chapters in Billy’s life.
Full of heart and depth. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-304279-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
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