A heartwarming tale indeed.
This true story of a stray dog that became a decorated war hero was first published in England to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I.
The smell of cooking attracts many stray dogs to the soldiers’ training camp, but one particular dog finds one particular soldier, and the two become inseparable. “An odd little dog with a flat face and short legs,” he is dubbed Stubby. Endearingly portrayed with big eyes and a let’s-play expression, Stubby goes off to Europe with his new soldier friend, the unnamed narrator of the story. Stubby marches, holes up in trenches, becomes a guard dog, wears a gas mask, and is injured on the battlefield. Stubby goes home a hero and leads the great victory parade, wagging his hero’s tail in this hero’s tale. Though he has created a darling of a canine protagonist, Foreman doesn’t shy away from the realities of war, vividly depicting villages in ruins, bullets “zipping and whistling around,” injured soldiers, and Stubby himself “covered in mud and blood, his eyes full of pain.” Except for an occasional face in a cheering crowd, all characters are white. While Foreman makes the tale universal, the backmatter fills in specific details: The soldier’s name was Robert Conroy, the training camp was in Connecticut, and the fighting was in France.
A heartwarming tale indeed. (Picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5415-5510-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Andersen Press USA
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
More thoughtful, sometimes exhilarating encounters with nature.
In a new entry in the Over and Under series, a paddleboarder glimpses humpback whales leaping, floats over a populous kelp forest, and explores life on a beach and in a tide pool.
In this tale inspired by Messner’s experiences in Monterey Bay in California, a young tan-skinned narrator, along with their light-skinned mom and tan-skinned dad, observes in quiet, lyrical language sights and sounds above and below the sea’s serene surface. Switching perspectives and angles of view and often leaving the family’s red paddleboards just tiny dots bobbing on distant swells, Neal’s broad seascapes depict in precise detail bat stars and anchovies, kelp bass, and sea otters going about their business amid rocky formations and the swaying fronds of kelp…and, further out, graceful moon jellies and—thrillingly—massive whales in open waters beneath gliding pelicans and other shorebirds. After returning to the beach at day’s end to search for shells and to spot anemones and decorator crabs, the child ends with nighttime dreams of stars in the sky meeting stars in the sea. Appended nature notes on kelp and 21 other types of sealife fill in details about patterns and relationships in this rich ecosystem. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
More thoughtful, sometimes exhilarating encounters with nature. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-79720-347-8
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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