It’s hard for most US readers to imagine what it is like to grow up amid ongoing violence, but that is what Liam’s life has been in Belfast. However, this 11-year-old’s family life, school, and dreams will be known to children everywhere. After providing an overview of “the Troubles,” McMahon movingly describes the conditions of Liam’s existence: a Catholic, he has never known a Protestant—“peace walls” separate the Catholic and Protestant sections of Belfast. On his way to school, Liam passes buildings with large messages painted on them: “Brits Out,” or “No Surrender.” Family and school conversations often include passing references to a bomb going off. O’Connor’s full-color photographs show all the aspects of Liam’s life, including his training for a boxing match; the boy loses, but rather than believe that the judges ruled against him because of where he’s from, he quotes a rule he has learned—“We win, or we lose. Then we go on.” This book provides a realistic glimpse of a place where peace has taken a fragile hold, and offers a reminder that the dreams of children can flourish amid misery. (map) (Nonfiction. 7-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-68620-2
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Whirls of tiny, brightly dressed people’some with wings—fill Kleven’s kaleidoscopic portraits of sun-drenched Los Angeles neighborhoods and landmarks; the Los Angeles—based authors supply equally colorful accounts of the city’s growth, festivals, and citizens, using an appended chronology to squeeze in a few more anecdotes. As does Kathy Jakobsen’s My New York (1998), Jaskol and Lewis’s book captures a vivid sense of a major urban area’s bustle, diversity, and distinctive character; young Angelenos will get a hearty dose of civic pride, and children everywhere will find new details in the vibrant illustrations at every pass. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-525-46214-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
Koller (Bouncing on the Bed, p. 143, etc.) portrays a Narragansett nickommoh, or celebratory gathering, from which it is very likely the tradition of Thanksgiving was drawn. As explained in an exemplary note—brief, clear, interesting—at the end of the book, these gatherings occurred 13 times a year, once each lunar month. The harvest gathering is one of the larger gatherings: a great lodge was built, copious food was prepared, and music and dance extended deep into the night. Koller laces the text with a good selection of Narragansett words, found in the glossary (although there is no key to pronunciation, even for words such as Taqountikeeswush and Puttuckquapuonck). The text is written as a chanted prose poem, with much repetition, which can be both incantatory and hackneyed, as when “frost lies thick on the fields at dawn, and the winged ones pass overhead in great numbers.” Mostly the phrases are stirring—as are Sewall’s scratchboard evocations—and often inspirational—for this nickommoh puts to shame what has become known as the day before the launch of the holiday shopping season. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81094-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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