Deeply affecting.
Hole once again tackles the hard issues in children’s literature, this time grief, with his now-signature blend of beautiful, thoughtful and quirky images (Garmann’s Secret, 2012, etc.).
Opening endpapers pay tribute to artist Magritte and begin a series of symbolic patterns with nails falling from a blue sky with puffy clouds. The quiet story starts as Anna, a girl with bold red hair, and her restless father prepare to do something difficult. Numerous clues, including a cloudlike woman’s face looking down from the sky, tell readers that the young girl’s mother has died before Anna acknowledges it. As Anna begins to ask such difficult questions as “How can God keep his eye on everyone?” her world turns dreamlike with Italianate designs and surreal imagery. Soon Anna and her father fly through a hole in the sky—which appears airy on some pages, as an underwater world on others and even a mix with butterflies and jellyfish floating together—as they make their way to heaven. They take turns questioning and offering possibilities (“Perhaps she’s in Paradise, doing some weeding”), finding comfort in their personal reflections, even if they don’t have all the answers. A hopeful ending offers a fitting closure to this intelligent picture book that will resonate with grieving children and adults alike. Readers of Hole’s previous books will also find subtle humor in repeat characters.
Deeply affecting. (Picture book. 8-11, adult)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5441-4
Page Count: 42
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
SEEN & HEARD
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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