In this dreamy, allusive tale from a distinguished writer for adults, grief loses its clutches on a boy’s heart thanks to time, loyal friends, and a healing encounter with a circus elephant. The strong affinity for elephants Ben shared with his mother has, if anything, intensified in the year since her death. The news that a circus is coming to town throws him into a fever of excitement, though being a reserved, inward sort, he shows it largely by snubbing his friends Dunk and Robin, feeling that sharing the performance risks spoiling it. The small circus arrives at last, with one elephant: Sala, the sad sole survivor of a quartet that, Ben learns, was poisoned recently by a cruel trainer. Ben talks his way into Sala’s private tent and has an epiphany when she picks him up with her trunk and sets him on her back. Price is less a storyteller here than a studier of character, and much of what does happen has a mystical air or is freighted with an indistinct significance. Ben treats Dunk and Robin so badly—even his kind, grieving father accuses him of being coldhearted—that readers won’t always like him, but since he’s so obviously in pain they may forgive him, and applaud his friends for sticking with him. Still, most children will labor to finish this. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-689-83029-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
PLB 0-517-70967-8 Me And My Family Tree (32 pp.; $13.00; PLB $14.99; May; 0-517-70966-X; PLB 0-517-70967-8): For children who are naturally curious about the people who care for them (most make inquiries into family relationships at an early age), Sweeney explains, with the assistance of a young narrator, the concept of a family tree. Photographs become understandable once the young girl learns the relationships among family members; she wonders what her own family tree will look like when she marries and has children. A larger message comes at the end of this story: not only does she have a family tree, but so does everyone in the world. Cable’s drawings clearly define the process of creating a family tree; she provides a blank tree so children can start on their own geneaology.(Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-517-70966-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Carolina’s life is not a perfect one, but she’s content. She, mother Melanie, and baby sister Trinity go from place to place in the old school bus that Melanie transformed into a home of sorts, with beds and a table and chairs—and no electricity or water, of course. They stop wherever there are opportunities for Melanie to find enough work to pay for food and other necessities; this time, they have taken up residence in a field above the ocean, where Carolina rescues an infant crow and it becomes her fast and only friend. She meets wheelchair-bound Stefan, whose father owns the field on which Carolina’s family is squatting. She and Stefan hit it off, and he introduces her to his mother, who takes an understandable interest in her; her own daughter, Heather, died. When Melanie decides to move to Oregon, Carolina stays behind with Crow, living with Stefan’s family. It’s inevitable that Carolina will change her mind—Melanie is a loving mother and Stefan’s mother has several issues to work out—but Hobbs (Get It While It’s Hot. Or Not., 1996, etc.) handles the path of Carolina’s reasoning well. It’s an unusual story, with interesting characters and a strong plot, and it’s fair to say that Crow steals the show, teaching Carolina how to accept change and to fly in spite of it. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: March 19, 1999
ISBN: 0-374-31153-6
Page Count: 138
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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