Night-Time Numbers (32 pp.; $15.95; Aug.; 1-84148-001-0) What creepy-crawlies lurk in the dark? As a mother and child move through the familiar routine of getting ready for bed, she asks, “who can you see?” and listens carefully to the child’s responses, which include monsters, dragons, witches, wolves, ghosts, and ghouls. Vibrant collage illustrations in a wide variety of textures complement the short rhyming text, and culminate in a golden yellow scene showing an angel watching over the sleeping child, who, having named her fears, can now sleep soundly. (Picture book. 2-6)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-84148-001-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Barefoot
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS
Did you like this book?
This color-concept book from newcomer Asbury has much going for it. The spare text (``I am Bonnie and this is my cat, Bluebonnet'') and the two-color illustrations (black and blue on a bed of white) are simple, direct, and oddly comforting. Bonnie recounts a day in her life: She introduces readers to her home, cavorts with her pals in a tree fort and swimming pool, sups, watches TV, reads her dad a bedtime story. For the most part, Asbury has chosen the vehicles for his color with a nod toward familiarity—blue water, blueberry pie, blue eyes (small, ghoulish buttons)—and sometimes with real invention: the flicker of the cathode ray, the glow of moonlight. The blue tree, on the other hand, is discordant. Two companion volumes, Rusty's Red Vacation (ISBN 0-8050-4021-8) and Yolanda's Yellow School (- 4023-4), take Asbury's color message aptly into those realms. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-8050-4022-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
A 15-year-old girl in Colombia, doing time in a remote detention center, orchestrates a jail break and tries to get home.
"People say drugs and alcohol are the greatest and most persuasive narcotics—the elements most likely to ruin a life. They're wrong. It's love." As the U.S. recovers from the repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, from the misery of separations on the border, from both the idea and the reality of a wall around the United States, Engel's vital story of a divided Colombian family is a book we need to read. Weaving Andean myth and natural symbolism into her narrative—condors signify mating for life, jaguars revenge; the embattled Colombians are "a singed species of birds without feathers who can still fly"; children born in one country and raised in another are "repotted flowers, creatures forced to live in the wrong habitat"—she follows Talia, the youngest child, on a complex journey. Having committed a violent crime not long before she was scheduled to leave her father in Bogotá to join her mother and siblings in New Jersey, she winds up in a horrible Catholic juvie from which she must escape in order to make her plane. Hence the book's wonderful first sentence: "It was her idea to tie up the nun." Talia's cross-country journey is interwoven with the story of her parents' early romance, their migration to the United States, her father's deportation, her grandmother's death, the struggle to reunite. In the latter third of the book, surprising narrative shifts are made to include the voices of Talia's siblings, raised in the U.S. This provides interesting new perspectives, but it is a little awkward to break the fourth wall so late in the book. Attention, TV and movie people: This story is made for the screen.
The rare immigrant chronicle that is as long on hope as it is on heartbreak.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 978-1-982159-46-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
Did you like this book?
Parr has a child’s take on hair’s many states—it can stand on end, blow in the wind, bubble with soap, or be pulled back into pigtails. He playfully records hair situations most children will recognize: Hair at a rock concert stands up straight, while a ‘do with too much hairspray turns into bedsprings gone berserk. Simple line drawings done in bold colors communicate the narrator’s notions: “This is my hair with my hat off” shows hair so flat a steam roller might have driven over it. The ending is uplifting—“No matter how your hair looks, always feel good about yourself. Love, Todd.” This book and its companions (The Okay Book, Do’s and Don’ts, and Things That Make You Feel Good/Things That Make You Feel Bad) have an attitude and look that should send them flying off the shelves. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-316-69236-0
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS
Did you like this book?
© Copyright 2021 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
