This warmhearted animal tale is a good choice for settings where longer stories for newly independent readers are needed.
Apple-grower Timo hates parties, but to help a friend he overcomes his timidity and hosts an apple festival.
Timo’s friend Hedgewick, an aspiring chef, wants to impress the influential travel writer/food critic who is coming to Toadstool Corners, so he enlists the rabbit’s reluctant help. The seven chapters introduce more anthropomorphic animal characters who help Timo develop the confidence he needs to make the event a success. Meanwhile, in an increasingly messy kitchen, Hedgewick is cooking up dozens of apple recipes. But while daydreaming about fame, Hedgewick burns the main course (apple-nut–stuffed squash). A simple apple-nut spinach salad saves the day. Full-color illustrations adorn almost every spread, breaking up the rather wordy text. Children making the transition from the controlled vocabulary of beginning readers to actual chapter books will find this a challenge, but the large, generously leaded type and generous use of white space make it more accessible. Hedgewick’s ambition to be the next top chef may be a stretch for young readers, but many will relate to Timo’s very human worries about his party skills. A recipe for apple banana cake appears on the final page.
This warmhearted animal tale is a good choice for settings where longer stories for newly independent readers are needed. (Early reader. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-7727-8008-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Pajama Press
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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BOOK REVIEW
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
A funny and timely primer for budding activists.
Problems are afoot at Emily Dickinson Elementary School, and it’s up to Bea Garcia to gather the troops and fight.
Bea Garcia and her best friend, Judith Einstein, sit every day under the 250-year-old oak tree in their schoolyard and imagine a face in its trunk. They name it “Emily” after their favorite American poet. Bea loves to draw both real and imagined pictures of their favorite place—the squirrels in the tree, the branches that reach for the sky, the view from the canopy even though she’s never climbed that high. Until the day a problem boy does climb that high, pelting the kids with acorns and then getting stuck. Bert causes such a scene that the school board declares Emily a nuisance and decides to chop it down. Bea and Einstein rally their friends with environmental facts, poetry, and artwork to try to convince the adults in their lives to change their minds. Bea must enlist Bert if she wants her plan to succeed. Can she use her imagination and Bert’s love of monsters to get him in line? In Bea’s fourth outing, Zemke gently encourages her protagonist to grow from an artist into an activist. Her energy and passion spill from both her narration and her frequent cartoons, which humorously extend the text. Spanish-speaking Bea’s Latinx, Einstein and Bert present white, and their classmates are diverse.
A funny and timely primer for budding activists. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 6-9)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2941-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
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