Sweet and comforting.
Trisha looks for signs from her grandmother in the sky but finds them closer than expected.
Trisha’s comfortably zaftig Russian grandmother tells her that stars are really “holes in the sky,” with the light of heaven gleaming through them. She says that she will be there soon but will watch over them, and she will send a sign to let them know. After Babushka dies, Trisha’s all-white family moves to the diverse city of Oakland, California, and Trisha becomes best friends with a black boy named Stewart. Stewart brings Trisha home to meet his grandmother Eula, a woman who cooks and gardens and whose shape echoes Babushka’s. Miss Eula mentions that Verna Bacci’s garden used to be the most beautiful on the block, before she lost her son in a terrible accident. The three of them decide to do something nice for Miss Verna, and the whole neighborhood pitches in. While Trisha has been searching the sky every night for a sign from Babushka, Miss Verna gets a sign from her son that they all can see. In the end, Miss Eula dabs vanilla behind Trisha’s ears just like Babushka used to, and Trisha realizes that her sign has been right in front of her. Polacco’s signature illustration style in sketched pencil and color emphasizes the relationships among people, just as the text celebrates the power of connection and the miracle of love in unexpected places.
Sweet and comforting. (Picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-3948-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode.
A long-running series reaches its closing chapters.
Having, as Kline notes in her warm valedictory acknowledgements, taken 30 years to get through second and third grade, Harry Spooger is overdue to move on—but not just into fourth grade, it turns out, as his family is moving to another town as soon as the school year ends. The news leaves his best friend, narrator “Dougo,” devastated…particularly as Harry doesn’t seem all that fussed about it. With series fans in mind, the author takes Harry through a sort of last-day-of-school farewell tour. From his desk he pulls a burned hot dog and other items that featured in past episodes, says goodbye to Song Lee and other classmates, and even (for the first time ever) leads Doug and readers into his house and memento-strewn room for further reminiscing. Of course, Harry isn’t as blasé about the move as he pretends, and eyes aren’t exactly dry when he departs. But hardly is he out of sight before Doug is meeting Mohammad, a new neighbor from Syria who (along with further diversifying a cast that began as mostly white but has become increasingly multiethnic over the years) will also be starting fourth grade at summer’s end, and planning a written account of his “horrible” buddy’s exploits. Finished illustrations not seen.
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-47963-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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