Beautiful images enhance this sympathetic story about friendship and loss.
Debut author Nickerson teams up with veteran illustrator Feldman in this beautifully illustrated, sensitive chapter book about losing a grandparent, the launch title in Nickerson’s Tulvia Lane series.
Kylie is excited to spend her summer vacation hanging out with friends, especially her best friend, Ally. The fifth-grade girls are practically inseparable; Ally’s mother watches Kylie while Kylie’s parents are at work, so they’re together every day. They hang out with friends at their ice cream clubhouse in Ally’s yard. But along with playing with friends, Ally is planning to spend lots of time with her beloved Gammie, whose illness has changed Ally’s schedule from spending every weekend with her grandmother to visiting Gammie with her mother every evening to help take care of her. The day after Ally has the best birthday ever, and tells Gammie about everything over the phone, Gammie dies, and Ally’s world is turned upside down. Since the story is told from Kylie’s first-person perspective, the brief sections where she describes Ally’s point of view feel out of place. But Kylie and Ally’s friendship feels genuine, and the girls act like fifth-graders throughout. Ally’s struggles with losing her grandmother don’t always depict her in the best light, however, as when she loses her temper with her friends, including Kylie, after they try to do something nice for her. Yet moments like that may help readers dealing with loss recognize that even if they take their grief out on their friends, their friendships are fixable. The illustrations are colorful and poignant, showing both the joy and sadness the characters experience. The diversity of the characters—Ally is African-American, Kylie is white, and they have multiracial friends—is appealing, especially as the races are never explicitly mentioned in the text, making it clear that for Kylie, race isn’t a factor in friendship. The narrative does meander between present and past tense, but the emotions still come through.
Beautiful images enhance this sympathetic story about friendship and loss.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4817-7986-9
Page Count: 44
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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