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ISLAND MAGIC

Name: ISLAND MAGIC
Author: Martha Bennett Stiles
ISBN: 0-689-80588-8

by Martha Bennett Stiles ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1999

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This peaceful yet affecting story from Stiles recounts a boy’s efforts to get his grandfather to feel at home when he comes to live with the boy’s family. The boy remembers all the fine times he had at his grandfather’s dairy farm—how the two of them would walk to the barn and the grandfather would regale him with interesting tidbits—and he wants his grandfather to feel the same excitement and pleasure in his new home, an island in the Detroit River. But the grandfather is taciturn in his displacement, full of memories and the pang of time’s passage. The boy is a masterful psychological strategist, gently nudging his grandfather toward joy in his new surroundings, yet never demanding a commitment. Gradually, quietly, as befits San Souci’s elegant winter-spare landscapes, the grandfather discovers a new life—often through the boy’s associating various elements of the island with the dairy farm. It is a subtle drift, and all the better for it, as the boy, the grandfather, and the island home meld into a give-and-take that marks a fruitful, abiding relationship. This affectionate story would make an excellent companion to Douglas Wood’s Grandad’s Prayers of the Earth (see review, below) (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-689-80588-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999

Categories:

CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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KEVIN AND HIS DAD

by Irene Smalls ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1999

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There is something profoundly elemental going on in Smalls’s book: the capturing of a moment of unmediated joy. It’s not melodramatic, but just a Saturday in which an African-American father and son immerse themselves in each other’s company when the woman of the house is away. Putting first things first, they tidy up the house, with an unheralded sense of purpose motivating their actions: “Then we clean, clean, clean the windows,/wipe, wipe, wash them right./My dad shines in the windows’ light.” When their work is done, they head for the park for some batting practice, then to the movies where the boy gets to choose between films. After a snack, they work their way homeward, racing each other, doing a dance step or two, then “Dad takes my hand and slows down./I understand, and we slow down./It’s a long, long walk./We have a quiet talk and smile.” Smalls treats the material without pretense, leaving it guileless and thus accessible to readers. Hays’s artwork is wistful and idyllic, just as this day is for one small boy. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: April 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-316-79899-1

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999

Categories:

CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
MY POP POP AND ME
by Irene Smalls & illustrated by Cathy Ann Johnson

- BOOK REVIEW
MY NANA AND ME
by Irene Smalls & illustrated by Cathy Ann Johnson

- BOOK REVIEW
DON’T SAY AIN’T
by Irene Smalls & illustrated by Colin Bootman

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DEAR JUNO

by Soyung Pak ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1999

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Picture-book debuts for both author and illustrator result in an affectionate glimpse of intergenerational bonds. Juno loves to get letters in the red-and-blue bordered airmail envelopes that come from his grandmother, who lives in Korea, near Seoul. He cannot read Korean, but he opens the letter anyway, and learns what he can from what his grandmother has sent: a photograph of herself and her new cat, and a dried flower from her garden. When his parents read him the letter, he realizes how much he learned from the other things his grandmother mailed to him. He creates some drawings of himself, his parents, house, and dog, and sends them along with a big leaf from his swinging tree. He gets back a package that includes drawing pencils and a small airplane—the grandmother is coming to visit. The messages that can be conveyed without words, language differences between generations, and family ties across great distances are gently and affectingly handled in this first picture book. The illustrations, done in oil-paint glazes, are beautifully lit; the characters, particularly Grandmother, with her bowl of persimmons, her leafy garden, and her grey bun that looks “like a powdered doughnut,” are charming. (Picture book. 3-7)