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GRANDPA WAS A COWBOY

Name: GRANDPA WAS A COWBOY
Author: Silky Sullivan
ISBN: 0-531-09511-8

by Silky Sullivan & illustrated by Bert Dodson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1996

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An achingly lovely story of a child's regaining a sense of his family's past. Grandpa is old, gray, and willowy by the time he first visits his young grandson (who narrates), sometime early in this century. He has a touch of the mythic about him: frontier cowboy, roving photographer, Ozark homesteader, father of 11. Passing along his life story to the boy, he downplays its sheer heroism and highlights smaller pleasures. When the boy (an orphan since infancy, he lives with an uncle and aunt) produces a picture of his dad, Grandpa speaks his piece in throat-tightening simplicity: ``He was too young to be no soldier, but he done good. They told me so.'' Grandpa soon heads home to his Ozark cabin. ``I won't be back. It's too far and I'm too old.'' Throughout, the boy's sense of loss, displacement, thirst for warmth, and need for Grandpa's words are always palpable. The visit is so fleeting, yet there's no doubt this brief encounter will linger with the boy, and even change his life. The jacket painting is a little mawkish, but Dodson's fine interior illustrations are as evocative, suggestive, and as unpretentious as the old man himself. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: March 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-531-09511-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Orchard

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1996

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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STINK AND THE MIDNIGHT ZOMBIE WALK

From the Stink series

by Megan McDonald & illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 13, 2012

This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...

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An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.

This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.

Pub Date: March 13, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
BUNNY AND CLYDE
by Megan McDonald ; illustrated by Scott Nash

- BOOK REVIEW
IS THIS A HOUSE FOR HERMIT CRAB?
by Megan McDonald ; illustrated by Katherine Tillotson

- BOOK REVIEW
STINK AND THE HAIRY SCARY SPIDER
by Megan McDonald ; illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds

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BUBBA, THE COWBOY PRINCE

A FRACTURED TEXAS TALE

by Helen Ketteman & illustrated by James Warhola ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1997

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A Cinderella parody features the off-the-wall, whang-dang Texas hyperbole of Ketteman (The Year of No More Corn, 1993, etc.) and the insouciance of Warhola, who proves himself only too capable of creating a fairy godcow; that she's so appealingly whimsical makes it easy to accept the classic tale's inversions. The protagonist is Bubba, appropriately downtrodden and overworked by his wicked stepdaddy and loathsome brothers Dwayne and Milton, who spend their days bossing him around. The other half of the happy couple is Miz Lurleen, who owns ``the biggest spread west of the Brazos.'' She craves male companionship to help her work the place, ``and it wouldn't hurt if he was cute as a cow's ear, either.'' There are no surprises in this version except in the hilarious way the premise plays itself out and in Warhola's delightful visual surprises. When Lurleen tracks the bootless Bubba down, ``Dwayne and Milton and their wicked daddy threw chicken fits.'' Bubba and babe, hair as big as a Texas sun, ride off to a life of happy ranching, and readers will be proud to have been along for the courtship. (Picture book/folklore. 6-8)