Can a puppy grow up into a girl? Aleasha Ann Davidson does just that in this entertaining, simple chapter book. Aleasha, who narrates, describes her arrival in the household as an Australian shepherd puppy. Nick, who had wanted a brother or sister, quickly adjusts to his pet, but his pet's adjustment surprises the whole family. With a puppy's reasoning, Aleasha decides that being human would be more fun and in the course of the book, with comic incidents along the way, turns into an affectionate seven-year-old girl. Children may be bothered by the way Aleasha can repeat and understand words from puppyhood, at the same time explaining to readers that she doesn't, in fact, comprehend much of what she has heard. It's not the only gap in logic, but the story has the appeal of a good family read-aloud, regardless of its imperfections. (Fiction. 7-11)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-32060-4
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
Every girl should be so lucky as to have such a papi.
A screaming, bright-blue comet zooms through the streets of Corona, California, in a race against the orange setting sun.
A unicorn-decorated purple helmet can’t hide the grin of the young girl tightly gripping the waist of her carpenter father, who’s hunched over his blazing motorcycle as a comet tail of sawdust streams behind them. Basking in her father’s wordless expression of love, she watches the flash of colors zip by as familiar landmarks blend into one another. Changes loom all around them, from the abandoned raspado (snow cone) shop to the housing construction displacing old citrus groves. Yet love fills in the spaces between nostalgia and the daily excitement of a rich life shared with neighbors and family. Quintero’s homage to her papi and her hometown creates a vivid landscape that weaves in and out of her little-girl memory, jarring somewhat as it intersects with adult recollections. At the end, her family buys raspados from a handcart—are the vendor and defunct shop’s owner one and the same? Peña’s comic-book–style illustrations capture cultural-insider Mexican-American references, such as a book from Cathy Camper and Raúl the Third’s Lowrider series and the Indigenous jaguar mask on the protagonist’s brother’s T-shirt. Dialogue in speech bubbles incorporates both Spanish and English, and the gist of the conversation is easily followed; a fully Spanish edition releases simultaneously.
Every girl should be so lucky as to have such a papi. (Picture book. 7-11)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55341-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Kokila
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
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