by Mark Karlins and illustrated by Sandy Nichols ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2009
Lorenzo Fortunato is the odd-egghead-out in a family of performers. While the others juggle, play banjos and crack wise, Lorenzo bumbles about, his head full of equations and space travel. His twin sisters taunt his ineptness—not mercilessly, but enough to give the story a realistic bite, which is softened by Nichols’s brisk, retro-flavored watercolors. More to Lorenzo’s liking, he fires up his spaceship and flies with Albert Einstein (who’s as likely as Howdy Doody to be recognizable to the publisher’s target audience of three- to five-year-olds) to distant galaxies, where the stars sing and the hippopotami are tiny and blue. Less to his liking, he misses his family. Albert understands (“Everybody needs a family”), and the two crash land their craft in the midst of a family performance—a neat piece of showmanship—and loving embraces ensue. Karlins’s finale may be clangingly unsubtle—there never seemed to be much of an issue that Lorenzo’s parents adored their little incompetent—but it also has a hug of inclusiveness that Walt Whitman would have admired. Every family needs an eccentric. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3220-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
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by Chris Paul ; illustrated by Courtney Lovett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 2023
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
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by Lisa Bowes ; illustrated by James Hearne ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 3, 2019
It’s a slam dunk
Lucy discovers that the way to learn to play basketball is with friends on a neighborhood court.
Lucy loves playing in the park, and one day she and her friends join their friend Ava and her cousin in their new favorite sport: basketball. Pro player Jermaine, aka “Coach J,” teaches all the basics—footwork, quick passes, dribbling, and a variety of shots. But he also encourages the players to keep trying when they miss, stresses the value of teamwork, and focuses on fun as they learn and later play a practice game. At the end of the workout, Coach J invites the young players to watch him and his team play. Written in loose rhyming couplets, the text has many near rhymes and inconsistent meter. While the storyline is predictable, the book is a good introduction to basketball terms, and young basketball players and fans will appreciate reading about themselves. Vivid silhouetted figures against a white background portray male and female players of several races; Lucy herself is white while Ava and Coach J are black. One young player competes from a wheelchair. A half page of backmatter explains the history of basketball, the NBA and its players, and wheelchair basketball, and one entry also explains the three-on-three basketball that the children play. The book publishes in a simultaneous French edition translated by Rachel Martinez.
It’s a slam dunk . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1697-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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