The wistfulness that's Palmer Brown's—with a twist, here, of E. B. White—and some characteristically winsome details (like...
Palmer Brown's first book in 20 years looks and sounds—and sometimes resounds—like Cheerful (1957), though the situation and its development are less inspired (remember churchmouse Cheerful singing "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John") and the illustrations accompany rather than balance the text—which in any case has less intriguing pictorial possibilities.
Hickory, Dickory, and Dock live with their parents in a farmhouse (you-guessed-it) clock—now and again tripping the farmer's wife's mousetraps for fun—until Hickory, biggest and boldest of the three, yields to the field-mice's siren song. "Each blade of grass you pull has a sweet white nibble at the base," they tell him, "each honeysuckle flower a drop of nectar." So, promising his mother to settle in the upper meadow ("because she could see it from the corner of the stairway window"), Hickory departs. "Time is going, / Never staying, / Always flowing, Ever saying: / Gone!" his father recites as the hour strikes. And it is this motif that hovers over Hickory's subsequent tender friendship with grasshopper Hop—whose own song ends, he's crushed to discover, with warning of her death when cold weather comes. He'll take her off south, Hickory determines; but even as they sing their songs "each a line in turn," Hickory shivers . . . and all unsaid is said.
The wistfulness that's Palmer Brown's—with a twist, here, of E. B. White—and some characteristically winsome details (like the pickle jar that serves as Hickory's sun parlor) give this a quiet appeal however less than memorable it may be . (Fantasy. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 1978
ISBN: 978-1-59017-627-6
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978
BOOK REVIEW
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
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
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