A touching, singular story of a painting elephant and the boy he lovingly fosters.
A little boy and a nurturing elephant embark on a memorable search and find adventure, fame and the meaning of home.
Abandoned by his parents as a baby, Pigeon Jones is “a restless sort,” who crawls into a pile of leaves next to a car wash, where Birch, a kind-hearted, white elephant with a talent for painting, finds him. Birch adopts Pigeon and raises him on his back, where Pigeon sleeps, eats, plays and showers. Fiercely protective, Birch homeschools Pigeon until fifth grade, when Pigeon attends the local school from his perch atop Birch. On his 10th birthday, Pigeon announces his wish to go to Paris so Birch can find his lost love and hang out with famous artists. They hop a freight train to New York, where they meet singing hobos, become trapped in the Bronx Zoo and devise a plan to free the animals. They live in Hollywood, discover the art world of Paris and briefly join a circus. But eventually Pigeon realizes that it’s time to leave the security of Birch’s back and feel the ground under his own two feet. The philosophical Pigeon narrates his story in painterly prose, evoking the beauty and wonder of the world he and Birch experience. Fluid, linear spot art captures the essence and whimsy of this unusual tale.
A touching, singular story of a painting elephant and the boy he lovingly fosters. (Fiction. 6-12)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-34854-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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