An affirming story about a helpful young Traveller.
Janie helps her neighbor Mrs. Tolen by reconstructing her caravan when the older woman needs a safer living space after breaking her hip.
Janie, a light-skinned girl with reddish hair who lives with her mother and grandfather, and Mrs. Tolen, gray-haired and light-skinned, are Travellers who live in caravans. In the past, they traveled from town to town, working with metals and recycling older materials in what Janie’s grandpa calls the “rag-and-bone trade.” After visiting a can-recycling factory with her diverse class, Janie decides to rebuild Mrs. Tolen’s caravan with the help of classmates and community members. The recycling plant donates recycled metal sheets, and the community collects cans to earn necessary funds. Volunteers work under Janie’s leadership. After Mrs. Tolen finishes rehab, she moves into her new recycled “Can Caravan.” Colorful, realistic illustrations lend an upbeat tone. Perhaps it’s unrealistic for Janie to direct the initiative, but the “komli chavvie” (kind child), as Mrs. Tolen calls her, has a strong interest in creating caravans, and kids will admire her take-charge attitude and goodhearted actions. O’Neill deftly folds traditional Traveller values and vocabulary into a contemporary picture book about recycling and community action. A helpful flowchart at the end shows how cans are recycled. Romani words are defined on the copyright page. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An affirming story about a helpful young Traveller. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-78628-615-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Child's Play
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sweet art, cloying storyline.
Actor Andrews and her daughter Walton Hamilton pay tribute to the power of music.
The inhabitants of a small village are happy with “simple pleasures” until they commercialize to attract tourists…whereupon a dismal purple mist creeps in and thickens to the point that people stop visiting or even going outside. Then one day little Piccolino, who is helping his father dust the deserted opera house, plinks out a tune on the piano…and notices that the palms in the lobby look fresher. The brown-skinned pair proceed to gather wilting houseplants from all over town, park them in the auditorium seats, and call the orchestra members in for a concert. The plants flourish, the fog lifts, and throngs of villagers are drawn out into the streets by the music to dance and sing. Everyone realizes that “if they remained faithful to all that matters most, nothing could darken their days again.” In a closing note the authors state that they were inspired by an actual concert played in Barcelona in 2020 to an “audience” of plants—a piece of performance art more likely to stimulate discussion than this trite, sugary mess. The illustrations are one bright spot: MacKay places her gracefully posed, diverse figures in luminously hued scenes of narrow streets and neatly kept buildings perched on a steep hill and threaded with musical staves. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Sweet art, cloying storyline. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781419763199
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Produced to celebrate the National Park Service’s upcoming centenary, a breezy invitation to prospective travelers to “get...
A family road trip through several national parks transforms young Jane’s feelings about missing out on a summer of online fun with her friends.
“There’s absolutely nothing to see here,” Jane emails fretfully as her family drives through the scenic Smoky Mountains and canoes past alligators and manatees in the Everglades. But once her dad gets her to put the tablet away and look through a telescope at the night skies over Big Bend National Park, her attitude transforms: “OH WOW!” Soon she’s tiptoeing over the Grand Canyon’s Skywalk like an acrobat, playing pirate on a raft down the Colorado River, scouting out “Mountain lions, buffalo, and bears. Oh my!” in Yellowstone—and, discovering that she’s misplaced her electronic device, sending written postcards to her friends from Yosemite. Furthermore, once back home, what better way to debrief than a backyard cookout under the stars? Giving blonde Jane and the rest of her white family broad, pleasant features, Rogers sends them smiling and singing their way through a succession of natural wonders, with bears and bald eagles, footnotes (adult supervision required on the Skywalk, for instance), and only a few fellow, occasionally diverse tourists in the background. Endpaper maps track the long itinerary, and a (select) list of other national parks and sites in each state offers more destinations.
Produced to celebrate the National Park Service’s upcoming centenary, a breezy invitation to prospective travelers to “get out there!” (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-246835-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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