A thoughtful illustrated work about a boy gaining wisdom about the world around him.
A brief novella for all ages about looking within for better understanding of others.
In Maxwell’s debut work, a little boy narrates his encounters with a series of fears and frustrations. As the book opens, for example, he’s eating dinner when he’s confronted with a “big, brown, and disgusting” cockroach crawling on the table. He viscerally dislikes cockroaches and loudly commands it to go away and leave him alone, after which “a little miracle” occurs: He realizes that his opinion of roaches was based solely on what others around him thought of them. “He questioned, for the first time in a very long time, how much he actually knew about cockroaches,” Maxwell writes. “He looked at the cockroach with curiosity….He began to feel compassion.” As the story advances, he encounters many other such things that prompt the same “little miracle,” including intangibles such as love or the future. About other people, he notes, “He started to realize that he had been mad at people not for what they were, but for what he had believed them to be.” Over the course of the book, Maxwell effectively repeats a similar formula as the boy experiences his epiphanies, resulting in broadening self-awareness, greater compassion, and a wider worldview. Daigle’s pleasing and often moving full-color ink-and-watercolor illustrations range from smaller, intimate images of the boy and those he meets to more elaborate full-page artworks. The simple, overarching message of these stories and images is one of empathy and self-examination, and their execution in these pages will make it appealing to both adults and younger readers.
A thoughtful illustrated work about a boy gaining wisdom about the world around him.Pub Date: April 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73335-332-8
Page Count: 110
Publisher: Hearthstone
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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