A child coming off chemotherapy wins new friends and acceptance from her class in this short, upbeat tale from Hamilton (Second Cousins, 1998, etc.). At first, Dreenie doesn’t know what to make of the girl, Natalie, who is in a wheelchair and knit cap, and who is called “Bluish” by the fifth graders not because she’s black and Jewish (as Natalie’s mother assumes), but because her skin is translucent. New herself, Dreenie quickly finds the right mix of distance and intimacy to be comfortable around her moody, fragile classmate, and soon others are gathering, too—especially after Natalie presents everyone with a wool cap like hers. Hamilton tells the tale from Dreenie’s point of view, moving back and forth between first and third person, sketching feelings and reactions in quick, vivid strokes: “[Bluish] made me care about what was all so scary, so sad and so hurt with her too. To me she is just Bluish child, Bluish ill serious. Bluish close with us. Someday Bluish just like us./Maybe.” While Natalie’s future remains clouded, the story’s tone is set by the pains, and the pleasures, of the moment: exchanging gifts, banter, friendship, and respect. The three children in Leo and Diane Dillons’ jacket painting are misleadingly grave, but the designs in their knit caps and scarves evoke the author’s poetic, richly textured prose. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-28879-2
Page Count: 127
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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This vibrant, thoughtful book from Katz (Over the Moon, 1997) continues her tribute to her adopted daughter, Lena, born in Guatemala. Lena is “seven. I am the color of cinnamon. Mom says she could eat me up”; she learns during a painting lesson that to get the color brown, she will have to “mix red, yellow, black, and white paints.” They go for a walk to observe the many shades of brown: they see Sonia, who is the color of creamy peanut butter; Isabella, who is chocolate brown; Lucy, both peachy and tan; Jo-Jin, the color of honey; Kyle, “like leaves in fall”; Mr. Pellegrino, the color of pizza crust, golden brown. Lena realizes that every shade is beautiful, then mixes her paints accordingly for portraits of her friends—“The colors of us!” Bold illustrations celebrate diversity with a child’s open-hearted sensibility and a mother’s love. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-5864-8
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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Florian’s seventh collection of verse is also his most uneven; though the flair for clever rhyme that consistently lights up his other books, beginning with Monster Motel (1993), occasionally shows itself—“Hello, my name is Dracula/My clothing is all blackula./I drive a Cadillacula./I am a maniacula”—too many of the entries are routine limericks, putdowns, character portraits, rhymed lists that fall flat on the ear, or quick quips: “It’s hard to be anonymous/When you’re a hippopotamus.” Florian’s language and simple, thick-lined cartoons illustrations are equally ingenuous, and he sticks to tried-and-true subjects, from dinosaurs to school lunch, but the well of inspiration seems dry; revisit his hilarious Bing Bang Boing (1994) instead. (index) (Poetry. 8-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-202084-5
Page Count: 158
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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