A story of a boy and his dog in the Texas hill country ranks high in the annals of boy and dogdom. Gipson, in earlier books, has evinced an evocative quality which recaptures for the reader the sounds, the smells, the sights of the region he knows and loves, recaptures too the emotional quality, the moods of his central figure. This was particularly true in Hound-Dog Man, which for some readers was marred by the vernacular. In Old Yeller the story is told as a boy might share his own experience of growing up — the dialect is no more insistent-possibly less so- than in The Yearling. Travis is thirteen when his father goes off on the long cattle trail to Abilene, leaving him as man of the house. There were the hogs who ran wild and some of the most exciting parts of the story tell of the roping and branding of the young. There were the cattle that had to be gentled for milking. There was a constant battle against skunks and coons in the corn patch and the melons. There was a small brother, violent in protest against Travis as disciplinarian. And — a fairly shadowy figure- there was his mother, taking her share and more, in the struggle for existence. But most important there was Old Yeller, a big ugly yellow cur, whom Travis hated at the start and grew to love and trust and depend on, up to the tragic and dramatic end. A moving segment of early frontier America.
Pub Date: July 11, 1956
ISBN: 0060935472
Page Count: 148
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1956
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The greening of Dr. Seuss, in an ecology fable with an obvious message but a savingly silly style. In the desolate land of the Lifted Lorax, an aged creature called the Once-ler tells a young visitor how he arrived long ago in the then glorious country and began manufacturing anomalous objects called Thneeds from "the bright-colored tufts of the Truffula Trees." Despite protests from the Lorax, a native "who speaks for the trees," he continues to chop down Truffulas until he drives away the Brown Bar-ba-loots who had fed on the Tuffula fruit, the Swomee-Swans who can't sing a note for the smogulous smoke, and the Humming-Fish who had hummed in the pond now glumped up with Gluppity-Glupp. As for the Once-let, "1 went right on biggering, selling more Thneeds./ And I biggered my money, which everyone needs" — until the last Truffula falls. But one seed is left, and the Once-let hands it to his listener, with a message from the Lorax: "UNLESS someone like you/ cares a whole awful lot,/ nothing is going to get better./ It's not." The spontaneous madness of the old Dr. Seuss is absent here, but so is the boredom he often induced (in parents, anyway) with one ridiculous invention after another. And if the Once-let doesn't match the Grinch for sheer irresistible cussedness, he is stealing a lot more than Christmas and his story just might induce a generation of six-year-olds to care a whole lot.
Pub Date: Aug. 12, 1971
ISBN: 0394823370
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1971
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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