Heart-wrenching, powerful, and beautifully realized.
Dad plans a pond in the backyard and speaks of all the wonderful things that it will hold. But it is a promise left unfulfilled.
When Dad dies, the uncompleted pond becomes a large part of the family’s grieving. The young narrator wants to see the pond completed, but for now they all see only “the muddy, messy hole that filled our hearts.” When the narrator fills the hole with water it makes the mess worse. Mother and older brother let out their anger, and the child retreats, screaming at Dad for dying. The family goes through the motions of their lives, and eventually the rebuilding of the pond brings them together. Then there is vegetation, insects, tadpoles, and dragonflies, just as Dad had envisioned, and they celebrate each sign of life. In time they are able to move on and start anew. Davies avoids sentimentality and pity in expressing the young narrator’s raw and painful emotions, as the survivors experience all the stages of grief, separately and together. Fisher’s dark-toned illustrations place the family deeply in shadow, encased in their pain. Only the pond has a degree of light, growing a bit stronger as time passes. The family emerges from the shadows emotionally, and finally, the image is bathed in misty light as they leave. Dad is white, and Mum appears to be Asian.
Heart-wrenching, powerful, and beautifully realized. (Picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-912050-70-3
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Graffeg/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
A sweet and entertaining series opener about family and friendship.
Nina is worried that her best friend, Jay, might not be her best friend anymore.
Nina Soni has been best friends with Jay Davenport since before she was born. But when Jay’s cousins move to town, he has less and less time for Nina—so little time, in fact, that she wonders if they’re still best friends. Nina is so distracted that she forgets about her Personal Narrative Project, an assignment in which Nina is supposed to write about something interesting that’s happened to her. At first, Nina wonders how she’ll ever write the essay when her family—and, by extension, her life—is so boring. But when Jay announces that he’s going to write the best PNP ever, Nina sees his challenge as a way to recover their friendship. Sheth’s language is poetic in its simplicity, and her narratorial voice is a pleasure to read. The book particularly sparkles whenever Nina interacts with her small but tightknit family, especially when she has to rescue her quirky younger sister, Kavita, from endless scrapes. The conflict between Nina and Jay, however, feels forced and tangential to the story, which really centers on Nina’s personal narrative and her loving, albeit exasperating, relationship with her family. Both Nina and Jay are Indian American; she on both sides of her family and he through his mother (his father is white).
A sweet and entertaining series opener about family and friendship. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68263-057-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In all, it's an unsuccessful follow-up to Weeks' Pie (2011), but word-loving Melody is appealing, and her appended list of...
Melody Bishop's peaceful life with her widower father is upset when the annoying 6-year-old next door comes home from the beauty parlor with some gossip.
The 10-year-old has already noticed her father's increased distraction and a new tendency to whistle, so when Teeny Nelson reports that "Henry's been bitten by the love bug," Melody is avid to know more. With her best friend, biracial Nick Woo, at her side, she goes to the Bee Hive beauty salon to investigate. What she discovers there rocks her world not once but twice, as salon owner Bee-Bee has information about Melody's mother, who died in childbirth and about whom her father never speaks. Weeks gets the small moments right: Melody's exasperation with Teeny and the way it turns to sympathy when the little girl's mother threatens a spanking; her affectionate resignation when her grandfather, who has emphysema, sneaks out to the garage for a smoke. And Melody's close relationship with her loving father is sweetly evoked. But other elements fail to cohere. Obvious misdirection leads Melody to a critical misunderstanding that never amounts to more than a plot contrivance, and the mystical visions of Bee-Bee's dog, Mo, who has an unknown connection to Melody, strain credulity.
In all, it's an unsuccessful follow-up to Weeks' Pie (2011), but word-loving Melody is appealing, and her appended list of nail-polish colors is somewhat amusing. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-46557-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
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