Strasser notes that history records the first use of diving bells by 16th-century Caribbeans trying to salvage treasure from sunken Spanish ships; in this novel, unfortunately, he stretches credulity in suggesting how. On an island paradise off the Yucatan Peninsula, young Culca stubbornly insists that she wants to be a pearl diver like her brother Tulone, though diving is traditionally men's work. She falls in with a friar who teaches her Spanish, religion, and mathematics, then finds Leonardo's sketch of a diving bell in one of his books. On a visit to the mainland, Culca sees a big bell outside the cathedral. After Tulone and others are kidnapped by the Spanish to recover gold from a galleon sunk in deep water, she persuades the bishop and governor to try her Leonardo- inspired idea of using the bell to save her brother. The author plays up both Culca's independence and Spanish treachery; though a kind sailor helps Culca and her brother escape, the conquerors are seen mostly as relentlessly greedy and cruel—even the friar dies from their abuse. In the end, Culca gets her wish, since her village has been decimated and needs divers: a wan triumph. A contrived but topical story, with an intriguing picture of several native cultures in transition. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: May 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-590-44620-7
Page Count: 159
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1992
PLB 0-531-33140-7 Ketcham’s first book is based on an allegedly true story of a childhood incident in the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. It starts with a couple of pages regaling the Bach home and all the Johanns in the family, who made their fame through music. After his father’s death, Johann Sebastian goes to live with his brother, Johann Christoph, where he boasts that he is the best organist in the world. Johann Christoph contradicts him: “Old Adam Reincken is the best.” So Johann Sebastian sets out to hear the master himself. In fact, he is humbled to tears, but there is hope that he will be the world’s best organist one day. Johann Sebastian emerges as little more than a brat, Reincken as more of a suggestion than a character. Bush’s illustrations are most transporting when offering details of the landscape, but his protagonist is too impish to give the story much authority. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30140-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
Adler (also with Widener, Lou Gehrig, 1997, etc.) sets his fictional story during the week of July 14, 1932, in the Bronx, when the news items that figure in this tale happened. A boy gets a dime for his birthday, instead of the bicycle he longs for, because it is the Great Depression, and everyone who lives in his neighborhood is poor. While helping his friend Jacob sell newspapers, he discovers that his own father, who leaves the house with a briefcase each day, is selling apples on Webster Avenue along with the other unemployed folk. Jacob takes the narrator to Yankee Stadium with the papers, and people don’t want to hear about the Coney Island fire or the boy who stole so he could get something to eat in jail. They want to hear about Babe Ruth and his 25th homer. As days pass, the narrator keeps selling papers, until the astonishing day when Ruth himself buys a paper from the boy with a five-dollar bill and tells him to keep the change. The acrylic paintings bask in the glow of a storied time, where even row houses and the elevated train have a warm, solid presence. The stadium and Webster Avenue are monuments of memory rather than reality in a style that echoes Thomas Hart Benton’s strong color and exaggerated figures. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201378-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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