This story of a psychically gifted eleven-year-old girl and her coming into her powers is the first in a trilogy, and much of the story, too, seems a setting-up for bigger things to come. The story has two strains: on the realistic level, Justice fiercely anticipates the Great Snake Race for which her brother Tom is organizing the neighborhood boys; she practices secretly for a bike trick she will perform for them all on the way to the snake swamp; and, it turns out, she misunderstands the terms of the race, which almost leads to her mortifying embarrassment. The other current, the supersensory one, begins with Justice's suspicion of a psychic bond between her older twin brothers, and we glimpse its nature as cruel Tom-Tom enters and controls brother Levy's mind. This is intriguing; but the sudden leap to Justice's being trained in mind power by a neighboring, adult Sensitive lands us, less seductively, in the realm of believe-it-or-not science fiction. The Sensitive's son Dorian has powers also—but his mother's suggestion that he should have intervened to save Justice's face in the snake race would seem a trivial misuse of them. In the end, the four special children—Justice, her brothers, and Dorian—sit with clasped hands as Justice explains, by mind-tracing, that "we four are the first unit," presaging a future in which everyone must be so joined. Tom of course resents Justice's newly revealed superior powers (but one feels for him for the first time when he complains, "I won't become a unit. I'll be me, alone, if I have to"). There will, it is suggested, be trouble from him and serious illness for Levy in future volumes. Perhaps now that Hamilton has assembled her unit, we can look forward to its pioneering ventures.
Pub Date: Oct. 16, 1978
ISBN: 0590362143
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1978
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unimpeachable.
A nearly wordless exploration of Aesop’s fable of symbiotic mercy that is nothing short of masterful.
A mouse, narrowly escaping an owl at dawn, skitters up what prove to be a male lion’s tail and back. Lion releases Mouse in a moment of bemused gentility and—when subsequently ensnared in a poacher’s rope trap—reaps the benefit thereof. Pinkney successfully blends anthropomorphism and realism, depicting Lion’s massive paws and Mouse’s pink inner ears along with expressions encompassing the quizzical, hapless and nearly smiling. He plays, too, with perspective, alternating foreground views of Mouse amid tall grasses with layered panoramas of the Serengeti plain and its multitudinous wildlife. Mouse, befitting her courage, is often depicted heroically large relative to Lion. Spreads in watercolor and pencil employ a palette of glowing amber, mouse-brown and blue-green. Artist-rendered display type ranges from a protracted “RRROAARRRRRRRRR” to nine petite squeaks from as many mouselings. If the five cubs in the back endpapers are a surprise, the mouse family of ten, perched on the ridge of father lion’s back, is sheer delight.
Unimpeachable. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-01356-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Preaches to the choir.
A picture-book introduction to the police.
A preface by the author/illustrator’s son Mark R. Levin, a lawyer and Fox News personality, tells readers, “My father…understands that in all walks of life, and in every profession, man’s imperfections present themselves.” But, distressed by “news reports painting police officers…in an extremely negative light,” he was stirred to create this book so that young readers might “learn to respect law and order.” After that beginning, straightforward text combines with simple, childlike illustrations to introduce various types of police officers and what they do, including traffic police, dog handlers, and state troopers. Unsurprisingly, this is an unnuanced, positive portrayal. “When a fierce hurricane hits, the police remain steadfast. Amid the rising floodwaters, they search for missing people and stranded pets.” The book does not fall into the common trap of adducing the criminality of those arrested but not yet tried—indeed, there’s just one depiction of an arrest, in the beam of light cast by a police helicopter as the text reads that its job is to “make sure all is safe in the surrounding neighborhood.” It is deeply unfortunate, however, in a book that is attempting to rehabilitate the police with young audiences, that the vast preponderance of officers depicted appear to be white (as are those they interact with). Nowhere in the book’s determined cheerleading is there room to respect the experiences of those who have lost family members and friends to the police and who themselves feel targeted.
Preaches to the choir. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-2950-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
