A restrained, lyrical introduction to a nature artist whose work and reputation justify the exposure to young viewers south...
Inspired by a historical encounter, a child remembers Canadian artist Tom Thomson teaching her to paint during a summer sojourn at her father’s lakeside home.
As in the creative team’s The Art Room (2002), a similar tribute to Canadian artist Emily Carr, Vande Griek’s spare, poetic narrative links a series of harmonious scenes done in strongly brushed strokes of greens, blues, and golds. Arriving at the lakeside house one afternoon in a canoe filled with “fishing gear, / camping gear, / painting gear,” Tom makes mulligatawny stew over a campfire and then, as days pass, ventures out with the young observer to paint flowers and boats, trees, and moonlight on water. All the while, as a sort of refrain, the west wind blows “gentle” or “fresh,” “light” or “wild,” and when at last it blows “away” with July’s passage, the young man too departs. Milelli incorporates inexact but evocative versions of some of Thomson’s paintings into his outdoorsy illustrations, and Vande Griek closes with a biographical note enlarging on the 1914 visit and the painter’s prominent place in the history of Canadian art.
A restrained, lyrical introduction to a nature artist whose work and reputation justify the exposure to young viewers south of the border. (resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-55498-701-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
A skimpy alternative to Adrian Lister and Martin Ursell’s Ice Age Tracker’s Guide (2010).
A small bison meets some ice age megafauna in this prehistoric ramble.
Assuring his mom that “I’m big now. I’m not scared!” little Toby scampers off. He collides with a grumpy woolly rhinoceros, introduces himself to a Megatherium, wonders at a woolly mammoth’s tusks, and sidles anxiously past a handful of other Pleistocene creatures—including a group of fur-clad humans—before gamboling back to safety. Along with exchanged greetings, each encounter comes with a side box of descriptive facts and comments, plus a small image of the animal posed next to a human (in modern dress) for comparison. Young viewers will marvel at the succession of massive ruminants and predators, which Lillington renders in watercolors with reasonable accuracy, if anthropomorphic facial expressions. He offers measurements in metric units only (except for humans, whose weight is opaquely designated “average”). Rather anticlimactically, he caps his gallery with a perfunctory, unillustrated list of “some other amazing ice age animals that Toby didn’t get to meet!”
A skimpy alternative to Adrian Lister and Martin Ursell’s Ice Age Tracker’s Guide (2010). (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-909263-58-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fitting addition to the annals of doggy courage.
A stirring tribute to an abandoned dog who became a Coast Guard hero.
Inspired by true stories about a dog she actually met in the 1960s, Polacco’s dramatic tale features two nautical rescues in which Vera—an unofficial (at first) mascot on what is now called Coast Guard Island in the San Francisco Bay area—played significant, lifesaving roles. Midsized, flop-eared, and wholly winning, Vera is surrounded in the ink-and-marker illustrations with adoring sailors of diverse skin tone who eagerly adopt her as a puppy in an early illustration, though her reception by the commander is not so assured. With her nautical heroics she eventually even wins over the base’s crusty, cigar-chomping “Ol’ Man.” The author herself comes into view years later when, as a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals worker, she witnesses the old dog’s last days and formal military burial beneath a memorial of crossed anchors. Though some, maybe all, of the dialogue is invented (“ ‘Cast off, mates—lives hang in the balance!’ he bellowed”), a closing photo taken on a recent visit to the island attests to the memorial’s existence, and Polacco’s account of her search for it makes a mildly suspenseful coda.
A fitting addition to the annals of doggy courage. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4227-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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