A tender demonstration of how familial love is like translation—inexact, difficult, and beautiful.
Uhlberg draws from his experiences with his deaf parents for this tale of mid-20th-century Brooklyn.
"Many things are loud. Please tell me better," the narrator’s father asks. Thus the son of deaf parents finds himself interpreting not only language, but sound itself. His father, who retains faint memories of hearing, insists that his son’s descriptions enable him to hear "in [his] mind." But expressing something as abstract as sound is daunting for a child, as an outing to bustling Coney Island illustrates. Papoulas' vivid paintings animate the setting and sentiment with photographic attention to faces and period details, silently evoking a din of everyday noises that seems impossible to convey. The narrator's frustration evokes sympathy, his squinting concentration palpable as he signs the woefully inadequate "loud." Despite his frequent use of figurative language—a roller coaster is "like thunder," and ocean waves crash "like a hammer"—he still doesn't have enough words. Finally, he asks a resourceful librarian for books on how to describe sound, and she returns with a promising volume of poetry. The narrator deftly and respectfully describes his conflicting feelings of love and resentment, sometimes envying other children who don't have to interpret for their fathers, but love wins out. Their affection for each other beams from their faces and hands.
A tender demonstration of how familial love is like translation—inexact, difficult, and beautiful. (author's note) (Picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-56145-833-2
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Charming.
Cinderella Smith, shoe-losing third-grader, is back, now facing the challenges of a research project.
Third-grade is the year when some kids (the Rosemarys, in this case) appoint themselves too old for childish things, while others (Cinderella and her posse) are still happy to jump and hop and slither when the zoo docent instructs them to. Alas! It’s hard to know what to do if you are Cinderella Smith. When the class is assigned a research project on animals, the children decide they want to shock and amaze their classmates. This turns out to be harder than they thought. Cinderella wants to study ocelots, but the books she needs mysteriously disappear from the library. She and her friends, the self-named Group in Cahoots, come up with a cooperative way to shock and amaze everyone, even the Rosemarys. Fans of this series will appreciate the subtle changes that happen in these sunny stories: The boys and girls are growing up and noticing each other in different ways—they solve problems and forgive each other, even when the Rosemarys conspire to ruin things. Goode’s black-and-white illustrations add humor and emotion to the story and, in the end, even make a lovely visual reference to the real Cinderella story when Charlie puts his basketball shoe on Cinderella’s bare foot.
Charming. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: April 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-200443-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deeply felt narrative, distilled from contemporary reports and documents.
A Southern novelist looks to the Civil War’s immediate aftermath in this newly free child’s account of a weary search for his mother.
“War’s over. Government say we free. Folks be on the move. Getting the feel for freedom. Not me.” He joins the large number of ex-slaves who, “all hope and hurry on,” have hit the road in search of brighter futures, but young Gabe has a different goal: tracking down his sold-away and only living parent Rosie Lee. Keeping his goal before him like the fixed North Star, he travels for months from Mobile to the “worn-down toes of the Appalachian Mountains,” following vague leads from sympathetic listeners and offices of the Freedman’s Bureau, enduring hardships and disappointment. Applying paint in thickly brushed impasto, Shepherd views Gabe’s world and encounters from a child’s-eye height but gives the barefoot, raggedly clad boy a look of hard-won maturity that points to past sorrows and underscores the depth of his determination. His distinct voice will draw readers into caring about his quest and sharing the tide of joy that accompanies his ultimate success: “That night, I slept snuggled up tight with my mama, praying for all those boys like me searching for their mamas who be searching for them.”
A deeply felt narrative, distilled from contemporary reports and documents. (afterword) (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-933693-97-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
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