In a brief episode exploring the theme of challenging gender roles that is loosely based on local history, the devastating flu epidemic of 1918 tests a Vermont child’s resolution to become a country doctor like her father. Resisting her mother’s insistence that it’s no job for a woman, Margaret cajoles her father at last into allowing her to accompany him on house calls. She proves an able assistant—but needs all her skills and stomach later that winter when, on the way to a remote relative’s with her little brother, she comes upon a farmhouse with a nearly dead dog outside, and inside only a small child shivering among the bodies of her stricken family. In a quick final chapter, Margaret grows up to achieve her heart’s desire, and even to see her own little daughter show early signs of continuing the family profession. Kinsey-Warnock (Lumber Camp Library, below, etc.) folds in a subplot involving a beloved uncle who comes back from the war deeply depressed and minus an arm, slips in a snippet about Elizabeth Blackwell for further role-modeling, and closes with a historical note. Young readers will be engrossed, following this plucky but vulnerable child through a time of hardship and widespread tragedy. Illustrations not seen. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-029319-5
Page Count: 80
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2002
From Hopkinson (Birdie’s Lighthouse, 1997, etc.) comes another strong, simply told story, based loosely on the life of 19th- century astronomer Maria Mitchell, about a girl with a particular kind of wanderlust. Maria narrates as she helps her mother with her eight siblings, tends to the fire, mends clothing, tells stories. Her heart, however, is on the roof with Papa, as he sweeps the sky with his telescope. When brother Andrew runs away to sea, Maria asks to take his place at her father’s side. Hopkinson includes deft references to Galileo and Copernicus, and to the planets, comets, and constellations known at the time, in language that is occasionally poetic. The loose brushwork of the acrylic paintings creates a lovely contrast between the bright heavenly bodies and the deep blue sky. The stylized domestic scenes echo the flat planes of early American portraits as they play against the wide sweep of night. Pair this with Don Brown’s Rare Treasure (p. 1223), about Mary Anning and her fossils. (Picture book/biography. 5-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81501-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999
A boy who shares Abraham Lincoln’s birthday muses on what Lincoln means to him. He’s tall and skinny and has big hands and feet, just like A. Lincoln (he didn’t like to be called Abe). “Big buttons on his coat. Big words in his heart. Big hands and big feet like mine” the boy notes as he passes a bronze statue of Lincoln while riding the school bus. When the boy’s buddies call him “Butterfingers” and “Butterfeet” because he stumbles into wet paint, his teacher tells him that Lincoln was called names such as “gorilla” and “baboon.” Lewin’s illustrations are the clear, realistically modeled watercolors readers have come to expect, placed over or against black-and-white drawings of Lincoln. These images of Lincoln at different points in his life make a powerful collage, which Lewin creates with fervor. There’s nothing preachy about Borden’s text, which makes the boy’s connection to this historical figure immediate, honest, and straightforward. It introduces Lincoln with beautiful simplicity to the youngest of children. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-45714-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
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