Marcy loves to read but can't spell; she imagines fantastic adventures but is a klutz when it comes to jumping rope or learning to ride a bike. Failing to make it into the treehouse (for a planned day's reading) without a boost from her brother, she sets out on her own to the distant hills, where she encounters first a grass nymph who advises her to ``seek if you would find,'' and then a fierce dragon. Using her wits, Marcy escapes—without the dragon's treasure, but with a new regard for her own abilities and potential. A simplistic message: if Marcy has a learning disability, as her symptoms suggest, hard work and self-reliance may be essential to overcoming it, but they aren't likely to be sufficient. Still, an appealing depiction of a third grader confronting her real dragons in an imaginary guise suggested by her favorite books. (Fiction/Young reader. 7-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1991
ISBN: 0-688-10078-3
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1991
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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A charming, true story about the encounter between the boy who would become chancellor at the University of California at Riverside and a librarian in Iowa. Tom†s Rivera, child of migrant laborers, picks crops in Iowa in the summer and Texas in the winter, traveling from place to place in a worn old car. When he is not helping in the fields, Tom†s likes to hear Papa Grande's stories, which he knows by heart. Papa Grande sends him to the library downtown for new stories, but Tom†s finds the building intimidating. The librarian welcomes him, inviting him in for a cool drink of water and a book. Tom†s reads until the library closes, and leaves with books checked out on the librarian's own card. For the rest of the summer, he shares books and stories with his family, and teaches the librarian some Spanish. At the end of the season, there are big hugs and a gift exchange: sweet bread from Tom†s's mother and a shiny new book from the librarianto keep. Col¢n's dreamy illustrations capture the brief friendship and its life-altering effects in soft earth tones, using round sculptured shapes that often depict the boy right in the middle of whatever story realm he's entered. (Picture book. 7-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-679-80401-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1997
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0792-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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