History, religious persecution, immigration, and the skeins of faith and love that connect a family are all knit together in...
Polacco has a gift for turning her own family stories into picture books that can touch the hearts of all.
The Keeping Quilt is now 25 years old. In this brand-new companion, Polacco turns to her great-grandmother Anna’s story of how she came to America. The pictures, vibrant and brilliantly suggestive of movement, are mostly black-and-white, shaded with her signature use of color to highlight certain details. Devotees of The Keeping Quilt will recognize Anna’s babushka, which became the border of the quilt, on the young Anna when the czar’s soldiers come to their Russian town to burn the temple and expel all the Jews. The family packs up its most precious possessions, including her papa’s sewing machine and the beautiful china teapot and cups that were a wedding present. Even as they travel, they continue the ritual of drinking from the cups for God’s blessing, breaking bread so they will never know hunger and using salt so that their lives will have flavor. When Anna’s papa’s health breaks down from hauling the cart with all their possessions, a widowed doctor takes the family in and cares for them until, once again, they are forced to leave. In gratitude for the doctor’s care and for his supplying them with passage to America, they leave him the tea set, save for one cup. Polacco closes with the journey of that particular cup to the present day.
History, religious persecution, immigration, and the skeins of faith and love that connect a family are all knit together in this powerful, accessible and deeply affecting story. (Picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-5047-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
Cheeky Lola is a well-balanced combination of exuberance and naïve vulnerability that charms and entertains.
Hilarious Lola has a lot of problems, but the very biggest one—growing all the time—is the immense knot of snarled hair at the back of her head. What is a girl to do?
Lola’s strategy is to ignore it if at all possible. Getting that knot out is going to hurt. The very thought of it makes her wince (worry and squint at the same time). The trouble is her hair is naturally curly, and if it doesn’t get properly brushed, as when her parents are too busy, then knots g-r-o-w. Another thing about Lola, who is white and Jewish but shares an elementary school class with a multicultural group, is that she likes to be kind, so she invites two of her second-grade classmates to drop their dogs off at her house so she can watch them over the busy Thanksgiving holiday. Even she knows that second dog is going to be a problem. Being kind also makes it very hard to tell one of her two competing grandmothers that her pumpkin pie tastes like “licking a candle.” Lola’s distinct, effervescent first-person narration includes the occasional definition—“Deluxe means you wish you had one”—and other funny thoughts that early grade school readers (and grown-ups) will laugh at. Hoppe’s numerous charming illustrations enrich the presentation.
Cheeky Lola is a well-balanced combination of exuberance and naïve vulnerability that charms and entertains. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62979-324-5
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Italics and exclamation points may be overused, but this new humorous series is full of gently amusing magical surprises.
Shades of Bewitched, the old TV show featuring a witch married to a regular guy.
This new chapter-book series stars Pandora, a white girl with two grandmas—the good witch, Granny Crow, in a patterned minidress, whose magical powers enliven any party or school outing, and Granny Podmore, in her cardigan and plaid skirt, a kind but stereotypical grandmother who cleans and cooks. Pandora’s friends include Nellie, a black girl, and Nellie’s mom is also depicted as black in the exuberant line drawings with gray washes. The three chapterlong adventures are rather tame, meant for readers who want fun rather than fright. In “The Super-Spooky Fright Night!” (all titles have exclamation points), the two grandmothers host a Halloween party. Granny Crow creates “bat-shaped cookies that hung around the bowls, and a custard cat (that actually meowed!).” Granny Podmore makes “the neatest swans” from napkins. Granny Crow conjures up musical broomsticks when Granny Podmore wants to introduce musical chairs. The evening ends happily when Granny Podmore uses Ollie, her vacuum cleaner, to suck up little pumpkins from Granny Crow’s pumpkin pop gone wild. Only Granny Crow appears in the other stories, making teddy bears come alive to give a “teddy bears’ picnic!” and causing a nasty teacher to accidentally cast a spell that turns a school swimming lesson into utter chaos.
Italics and exclamation points may be overused, but this new humorous series is full of gently amusing magical surprises. (Fantasy. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8653-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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