Even before Barnum, there was Bailey: Hackaliah Bailey, an entrepreneur who, in 1808, purchased an elephant from a sea captain and took her back to his farm in Somers, New York, where he housed her in his barn, exhibited her to neighbors, and then took her on the road. In time, he added other animals to create ``Bailey's Traveling Show and Menagerie,'' which toured New York and New England, included clowns and acrobats, and was displayed in ``the first circus tent.'' McClung's engaging fictionalization is interesting as much for the Early American logistics of keeping an elephant as for the events, which are pleasantly enlivened by the presence of Hack's young nephew. Kelly achieves an appropriately old-time flavor with energetic illustrations whose cheerful characterizations and careful definition of forms recall the Petershams. (Young reader/Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: March 16, 1993
ISBN: 0-688-10642-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Steig (Toby, Where Are You?, 1997, etc.), inspired by a game he used to play with his daughter, turns a rainy day into a pizza party, starring a caring father and his feeling-blue son, Pete. Just when Pete was set to go play ball with his friends, it starts to rain. His melancholy is not lost on his father: “He thinks it might cheer Pete up to be made into a pizza.” Which is just what the father proceeds to do. Pete is transported to the kitchen table where he is kneaded and stretched, tossed into the air for shaping, sprinkled with oil and flour and tomatoes and cheese (water, talcum, checkers, and bits of paper). He then gets baked on the living room couch and tickled and chased until the sun comes out and it is time to speed outside, a pizza no more, but happy. What leaps from the page, with a dancer’s grace, is the warmth and imagination wrapped in an act of kindness and tuned- in parenting. As always, Steig’s illustrations are a natural—an organic—part of the story, whether Pete’s a pizza, or not. (Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1998
ISBN: 0-06-205157-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
Keena Ford’s second-grade class is taking a field trip to the United States Capitol. This good-hearted girl works hard to behave, but her impulsive decisions have a way of backfiring, no matter how hard she tries to do the right thing. In this second book in a series, Keena cuts off one of her braids and later causes a congressman to fall down the stairs. The first-person journal format is a stretch—most second graders can barely write, let alone tell every detail of three days of her life. Children will wonder how Keena can cut one of her “two thick braids” all the way off by pretend-snipping in the air. They will be further confused because the cover art clearly shows Keena with a completely different hairdo on the field trip than the one described. Though a strong African-American heroine is most welcome in chapter books and Keena and her family are likable and realistic, this series needs more polish before Keena writes about her next month in school. (Fiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3264-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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