A Canadian novelist (Redwork, 1990) pays tribute to Amherst's great poet. Dickinson's new neighbor, a little girl, tells the story: a poetic missive—dried flowers with a plea to the child's mother to "Revive me with your music. It would be spring to me"—is slipped through the mail slot. Mother is reluctant, but Father senses the quality behind "the Myth," explaining that poetry is like music: "...sometimes a magic happens and it seems the music starts to breathe. It sends a shiver through you." When mother and child pay their call, Emily flees upstairs to listen to the piano from the landing, where the child joins her for a brief exchange of words and impromptu gifts—the lily bulbs she has brought for a precious bit of paper with a handwritten poem. The story is very quiet but beautifully crafted, with a clarity of observation and a delicately tart edge that creditably emulate Emily herself. Cooney's exquisite mixed- media art is perfect for the 19th-century New England setting; her beautifully balanced compositions are enriched with charming domestic detail and just a hint of satirical humor. An evocative glimpse of a formal society that will seem quite foreign to most children today, and of a mysterious, oddly independent woman who fascinated her own contemporaries as much as she does ours. (Picture book. 5+)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-385-30697-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1992
Steig (Toby, Where Are You?, 1997, etc.), inspired by a game he used to play with his daughter, turns a rainy day into a pizza party, starring a caring father and his feeling-blue son, Pete. Just when Pete was set to go play ball with his friends, it starts to rain. His melancholy is not lost on his father: “He thinks it might cheer Pete up to be made into a pizza.” Which is just what the father proceeds to do. Pete is transported to the kitchen table where he is kneaded and stretched, tossed into the air for shaping, sprinkled with oil and flour and tomatoes and cheese (water, talcum, checkers, and bits of paper). He then gets baked on the living room couch and tickled and chased until the sun comes out and it is time to speed outside, a pizza no more, but happy. What leaps from the page, with a dancer’s grace, is the warmth and imagination wrapped in an act of kindness and tuned- in parenting. As always, Steig’s illustrations are a natural—an organic—part of the story, whether Pete’s a pizza, or not. (Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1998
ISBN: 0-06-205157-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
Keena Ford’s second-grade class is taking a field trip to the United States Capitol. This good-hearted girl works hard to behave, but her impulsive decisions have a way of backfiring, no matter how hard she tries to do the right thing. In this second book in a series, Keena cuts off one of her braids and later causes a congressman to fall down the stairs. The first-person journal format is a stretch—most second graders can barely write, let alone tell every detail of three days of her life. Children will wonder how Keena can cut one of her “two thick braids” all the way off by pretend-snipping in the air. They will be further confused because the cover art clearly shows Keena with a completely different hairdo on the field trip than the one described. Though a strong African-American heroine is most welcome in chapter books and Keena and her family are likable and realistic, this series needs more polish before Keena writes about her next month in school. (Fiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3264-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2009
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