A pleasant story with pretty illustrations.
A shy snowman and a curious rabbit weather a friendship through the seasons.
Soft watercolor illustrations and hand-lettered text tell the story of a snowman built and left in the woods. Wondering if his child-creators abandoned him because of his skinny arms, crooked smile or holey scarf, the snowman is discovered by an inquisitive rabbit. After introductions, they become fast friends. They talk about the snow and the sun, the stars and birds–until, of course, spring arrives. When the snowman disappears, the rabbit wonders if he did something wrong, or if his ears were too big or his nose too small. Unfortunately, the tale never addresses these great questions of insecurity, to which most children could relate. Instead, the story follows the rabbit through the seasons–frolicking and eating through the spring and summer, wondering where the flowers and animals disappear to in the autumn–until the first snowfall and the magical reappearance of the snowman. Reunited, they pick up their conversation where they had left off, friends once more. The measured cadence of long, leisurely sentences sets a relaxing tone, although young children may lose interest at times when listening to the wordier descriptions. A soothing pastel color palette complements the simple pen and ink with watercolor illustrations, some more skilled than others. Details from larger illustrations become charming border treatments that set off text, usually spoken and unspoken dialogue. While the book is light on facts and the story behind the development of the friendship between the snowman and the rabbit, the book is a gentle, if not compelling, preschool read. Discussion about what it means to be a good friend, as well as an opportunity to point out seasonal differences, arise naturally from the tale.
A pleasant story with pretty illustrations.Pub Date: June 19, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-419-65625-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Troubled teen meets totemic catalyst in Mikaelsen’s (Petey, 1998, etc.) earnest tribute to Native American spirituality. Fifteen-year-old Cole is cocky, embittered, and eaten up by anger at his abusive parents. After repeated skirmishes with the law, he finally faces jail time when he viciously beats a classmate. Cole’s parole officer offers him an alternative—Circle Justice, an innovative justice program based on Native traditions. Sentenced to a year on an uninhabited Arctic island under the supervision of Edwin, a Tlingit elder, Cole provokes an attack from a titanic white “Spirit Bear” while attempting escape. Although permanently crippled by the near-death experience, he is somehow allowed yet another stint on the island. Through Edwin’s patient tutoring, Cole gradually masters his rage, but realizes that he needs to help his former victims to complete his own healing. Mikaelsen paints a realistic portrait of an unlikable young punk, and if Cole’s turnaround is dramatic, it is also convincingly painful and slow. Alas, the rest of the characters are cardboard caricatures: the brutal, drunk father, the compassionate, perceptive parole officer, and the stoic and cryptic Native mentor. Much of the plot stretches credulity, from Cole’s survival to his repeated chances at rehabilitation to his victim being permitted to share his exile. Nonetheless, teens drawn by the brutality of Cole’s adventures, and piqued by Mikaelsen’s rather muscular mysticism, might absorb valuable lessons on anger management and personal responsibility. As melodramatic and well-meaning as the teens it targets. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-380-97744-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel; then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed. As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here. And both struggle for visibility beneath a wagonload of symbol and metaphor: the real tiger (and the inevitable recitation of Blake's poem); the cage; Rob's dream of Sistine riding away on the beast's back; a mysterious skin condition on Rob's legs that develops after his mother's death; a series of wooden figurines that he whittles; a larger-than-life African-American housekeeper at the motel who dispenses wisdom with nearly every utterance; and the climax itself, which is signaled from the start. It's all so freighted with layers of significance that, like Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (2000), Anne Mazer's Oxboy (1995), or, further back, Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead (1965), it becomes more an exercise in analysis than a living, breathing story. Still, the tiger, "burning bright" with magnificent, feral presence, does make an arresting central image. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-0911-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
BOOK TO SCREEN
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