In this lovely, haunting novel, Kinsey-Warnock (In the Language of Loons, 1998, etc.) explores the adage about being careful what one wishes for. In Vermont in 1932, 12-year-old Lily Randall wishes that just once her family would favor her over older sister Emily, with whom she fights constantly. Emily always seems to get her way and, in Lily’s eyes, seems to be the more loved of the two girls. Lily longs to be far away from Emily and wants dreadful things to happen to her. Lily also dreams of having a horse of her own but recognizes wistfully that this wish too will most likely remain unfulfilled. Enter feisty Great-aunt Nell, a missionary visiting from India. Nell turns out to be the catalyst by which Lily acquires her horse, one she adores and trains to dive like the one in a circus act that mesmerized her. Then a terrible thing really does happen to Emily: she contracts polio and is confined to an iron lung. Lily is consumed with guilt, believing that she made her sister ill. The painful growing up that Lily is subsequently forced to do and the sacrifices she makes to try to atone are truly heart-wrenching. Readers will be hard-pressed to remain dry-eyed as the novel draws to its sad, but never maudlin, conclusion. The author writes with sureness and clarity, and the characters are memorable. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-525-46448-4
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel; then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed. As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here. And both struggle for visibility beneath a wagonload of symbol and metaphor: the real tiger (and the inevitable recitation of Blake's poem); the cage; Rob's dream of Sistine riding away on the beast's back; a mysterious skin condition on Rob's legs that develops after his mother's death; a series of wooden figurines that he whittles; a larger-than-life African-American housekeeper at the motel who dispenses wisdom with nearly every utterance; and the climax itself, which is signaled from the start. It's all so freighted with layers of significance that, like Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (2000), Anne Mazer's Oxboy (1995), or, further back, Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead (1965), it becomes more an exercise in analysis than a living, breathing story. Still, the tiger, "burning bright" with magnificent, feral presence, does make an arresting central image. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-0911-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
There is something profoundly elemental going on in Smalls’s book: the capturing of a moment of unmediated joy. It’s not melodramatic, but just a Saturday in which an African-American father and son immerse themselves in each other’s company when the woman of the house is away. Putting first things first, they tidy up the house, with an unheralded sense of purpose motivating their actions: “Then we clean, clean, clean the windows,/wipe, wipe, wash them right./My dad shines in the windows’ light.” When their work is done, they head for the park for some batting practice, then to the movies where the boy gets to choose between films. After a snack, they work their way homeward, racing each other, doing a dance step or two, then “Dad takes my hand and slows down./I understand, and we slow down./It’s a long, long walk./We have a quiet talk and smile.” Smalls treats the material without pretense, leaving it guileless and thus accessible to readers. Hays’s artwork is wistful and idyllic, just as this day is for one small boy. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-316-79899-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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