Polacco (Babushka's Mother Goose, 1995, etc.) adds to her list of memorable characters in this somewhat mawkish tale of throwaway (homeless) people, a blind goose, and a park keeper named Stephanie Michele. The orphan Fondo spends his summer days sitting on a park bench in a nature preserve on Merritt Lake, watching the homeless people and the geese. Stephanie Michele, a big-hearted, middle-aged African-American woman, welcomes and befriends Fondo. She teaches him to help her care for the geese, shows him a blind goose who needs a little special help, and gives him an official park shirt. The goose becomes Fondo's special charge; in fact, he spends so much time caring for the geese that the throwaway people tease, "Pretty soon, you're gonna turn into a goose!" When Fondo learns he will be sent away as a "special needs" child, he wishes he could fly away with the geese—and does. The title page calls this story "A Modern Myth," but most of its elements are too grounded in reality to achieve mythic status. The most fanciful aspects may be the cute bag lady and jolly Vietnam vet. Polacco's characteristic illustrations in warm brown, peach, and green, capture the vulnerability of the unwanted boy, the beauty of the wild geese, and the solid strength and loving warmth of Stephanie Michele. If only the rest of the book were as real as she is. (Picture book. 4-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 10, 1996
ISBN: 0-399-22520-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
Will leave readers as happy as a pig in mud.
It’s good to embrace change.
Although an unseen narrator attempts to tell an accustomed version of “The Three Little Pigs”—here named Alan, Alfred, and Alvin Albert—their younger sister, Alison, wants to get in on the action because she’s a natural storyteller. The narrator grudgingly allows Alison to tag along, but her added bits of flavor and the unexpected personalities of her brothers soon send the story off its traditional tracks and into hilarious hijinks. For example, Alan’s love of building allows him to design a functional house made of plastic drinking straws, Alfred’s stick house is actually constructed by Alan because Alfred’s clearly a star and not stage crew, and Alvin’s shacking up in a pumpkin behind Cinderella’s castle because he’s…not the crispiest piece of bacon on the plate. Alison’s quick thinking leads the brothers to be one step ahead of the wandering wolf. When the narrator hits their limit, a conversation with Alison proves that collaboration can lead to unexpected but wonderful results. The story flows well, accompanied by energetic cartoon art, and the choice to color-code the speech bubbles of each character (and the text of the narrator vs. Alison) ensures readers will be able to follow the snappy dialogue. Those who love to make up their own stories will be inspired, and readers who march to the beats of their own drums will be delighted. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Will leave readers as happy as a pig in mud. (Picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-3243-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Two Lions
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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