Jim is in the hospital, seriously ill and facing surgery; he knows he might die. He’s too frail for surgery and he’s afraid. Nurse Bami is “from Africa; she had tribal scars on her cheeks. She had seen lions, elephants, crocodiles.” And she is able to facilitate Jim’s ability to find the strength to fight for his life. She tells him to go to a good place in his mind where his “finder” can come to him and bring him back. In a series of dreams, Jim visits a lonely place by the sea and discovers that his finder is a lion. Ultimately, his lion is the source of the strength and courage he needs to be able to recover sufficiently to come home for Christmas. Jim’s story is beautifully told in a measured progression of conversations between Nurse Bami and Jim and a series of Jim’s dreams. Though the text is lengthy and the subject matter serious and complex, the pencil-and-pastel illustrations perfectly match the gentle, soft tone and enhance the dreamlike qualities. The muted quality of the light, the translucence of the lion, and the slightly out-of-focus figures are all a perfect match for the ethereal tone of the narrative. The oversized trim and borderless double spreads beckon the reader into the good place where the finders can come for them too. Hoban has taken a difficult subject and created an artful story, avoiding both preachiness and sappiness. The ending offers great hope but no miraculous cures. Effective for one-on-one reading with a child who’s facing any type of difficulty for which inner strength is needed. Beautiful and comforting. (Picture book. 6-10)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1175-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2001
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
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