Extraordinary artwork inspires young people to use their hearts and hands.
A grandmother holds a baby’s hand and wonders, “What will these hands make?” Myriad possibilities follow.
What if those little hands made “a fiddle to play quick / a stack of wood for the night / a play to cheer / a lantern to guide the way back home?” Or how about “a bridge to cross a river / a boat to sail the sea / a house for swallows / a home for families?” These projects appear embedded within luxuriantly detailed scenes, made with McClure’s own steady hand and an X-Acto knife. Capitalized headers boldly ask “WILL THESE HANDS MAKE,” with possibilities unfurling in lyrical, lucid verse beneath. Awe-inspiring double-page spreads show a busy town from multiple, miraculous perspectives. Putty-colored paper serves as a soothing, neutral background for McClure’s inky-black illustrations, and it also allows all people to share the same skin tone. Selective pops of color (icy blue, buttercream yellow, brick red, cotton white) highlight fabric, flowers, cake, a mast. The matte pigments glow on the taupe paper, emphasizing just how good, hands-on work provides bright spots in communities. McClure encourages readers to trace their hands on two vacant ovals on the final pages, and it seems she’s asking also for a promise to do something with their own hands in the future. A conversational author’s note describes how she cuts paper to make artwork.
Extraordinary artwork inspires young people to use their hearts and hands. (Picture book. 4-10)Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2576-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.
Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.
Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A delightful, thoughtful escape to a magical world.
A mysterious hotel guest tells stories to a maid’s child.
It’s been a long time since the last letter arrived from Marta’s soldier father; without him, Marta and her mother have landed in the attic room of the Hotel Balzaar, where her mother works as a maid and Marta must be always unobtrusive. But when a flamboyant elderly countess with a parrot arrives, the new guest spots Marta right away and insists the child come to her room to hear stories. The stories enchant and frustrate Marta in equal turns, being both compelling and ending in places that leave her unsatisfied. But the stories also seem interconnected in ways that inspire Marta to examine them for deeper meaning. Pieces of the fablelike stories relate to Marta—especially to her father. Marta’s holding out in her belief that he will return to them one day, and she finds the more magical takes on reality offered by the countess’s stories reassuring in the face of her life’s ambiguities. Readers, too, will enjoy piecing together the connections among the stories and will be encouraged to seek deeper truths about people and the world around them. The vintage, baroque artwork features bold, confident lines that capture the timelessness of both Marta’s story and the countess’s tales. Characters present white.
A delightful, thoughtful escape to a magical world. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781536223316
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
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