Eurocentric, not to mention overly ambitious—but being able to say some variant of “Not so hot” in Belarus, Brazil or any...
With just a bit of practice children will come away from this quick but sweeping linguistic look-see able to exchange greetings and a “How are you doing?” with anyone (almost) anywhere in the world.
Following a dash past language’s origins and families, Webb introduces 21 tongues—literally, as signed languages are clumped with semaphore and other codes in a mop-up chapter at the end. At one double-page spread per language, each is given a thumbnail history, a linguistic map, translations of the numbers one through 10, pronunciation notes and a set of conversational words or phrases from “Hello” to “I’m fine, thank you” or, conversely, “Not so good.” He also tacks on an alphabet (Pinyin for Mandarin Chinese, Devanagari script for Hindi-Urdu) and, in catchall boxes on each spread, comments on scripts, loan words, and one or two distinctive orthographic or grammatical features. Including English, 10 of his selections are European languages, but he also tucks in a few choices from elsewhere such as Quechua and Zulu plus, in passing, samples at least of Esperanto, Klingon and even “Textese,” LOL. Lest he be accused of leaving anything out, the author closes with a glance at various forms of animal communication.
Eurocentric, not to mention overly ambitious—but being able to say some variant of “Not so hot” in Belarus, Brazil or any point between has to count for something. (index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: April 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-77147-155-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
Readers looking for a story involving horses, magic, or a bit of Cuban history will do better looking elsewhere.
A young girl’s greatest fear is the loneliness of horselessness.
The story starts as the Spanish-American War ends. Estrellita is a young girl afflicted by rickets due to the lack of sunshine and proper nutrition experienced during the war when she and her mother were forced to remain hidden in a cave. Now out of the cave and in the city, Estrellita meets a man who rewards her imaginative storytelling by allowing her to groom his horses, and she eventually learns to ride. When a colt is born and becomes hers, a bond is forged between the two. Eventually Estrellita, the horse—Lucero, or Morning Star—and a large group of Cuban children end up at a progressive theosophist school in California. Horse and rider are separated, and by the time they reunite, the horse has grown wings and can fly. Engle combines a too-large number of intriguing though disparate elements as she works from beginning to unsatisfying ending: Cuban lore, alternative education, physical disabilities, a love of horses, magical flights in the air and underwater, mistrust, bullying, anger, bewilderment, and punishment. The resulting story is one that rambles more than it makes sense. The Spanish translation runs in parallel to the English text on facing pages; though for the most part it’s correct, it is at times too wordy, leading to awkwardness.
Readers looking for a story involving horses, magic, or a bit of Cuban history will do better looking elsewhere. (author’s note) (Historical verse novel. 10-13)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943050-25-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Horizon Bound
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2017
More amusing than your average civics class.
A love of learning does not require homework to flourish in Frank’s (Armstrong and Charlie, 2017) latest.
Sixth-grader Sam wants to build a treehouse with his dad and spend more time with his older half sister, Sadie, but instead he faces a seemingly bottomless pit of superfluous schoolwork. One more homework assignment is the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back, launching Sam up on his desk in protest—and subsequently into a three-day suspension. Sadie, mired in her own endless homework Hades, soon joins forces to stand up against the curricular status quo. With a crew of friends who each bring their own areas of expertise and life experience to the team, Sam, Sadie, and their curmudgeonly, retired-lawyer neighbor, Mr. Kalman, manage to take their fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the process, Sam and his squad learn about civics, computer science, economics: more than any worksheet could ever hope to instill. While the pacing of their court case, from principal’s office to the highest court in the land in the span of mere months, stretches the bounds of credulity even for fiction, the story is entertaining and engaging. The characters’ example of project-based learning is likely to appeal to both educators and burned-out students. Sam and Sadie seem to be white by default, and their friends are a relatively diverse group.
More amusing than your average civics class. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-79920-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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