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
A tender bedtime tale set in a too-seldom-seen northern world.
A quiet book for putting young children to bed in a state of snowy wonder.
The magic of the north comes alive in a picture book featuring Inuit characters. In the sky at nighttime, snow falls fast. / … / In the sky at nighttime, a raven roosts atop a tall building. / … / In the sky at nighttime, a mother’s delicate song to her child arises like a gentle breeze.” With the repetition of the simple, titular refrain, the author envisions what happens in a small town at night: Young children see their breath in the cold; a hunter returns on his snowmobile; the stars dazzle in the night sky. A young mother rocks her baby to sleep with a song and puts the tot down with a trio of stuffed animals: hare, polar bear, seal. The picture book evokes a feeling of peace as the street lamps, northern lights, and moon illuminate the snow. The illustrations are noteworthy for the way they meld the old world with what it looks like to be a modern Indigenous person: A sled dog and fur-lined parkas combine easily with the frame houses, a pickup truck, power lines, and mobile-hung crib. By introducing Indigenous characters in an unremarkably familiar setting, the book reaches children who don’t always see themselves in an everyday context.
A tender bedtime tale set in a too-seldom-seen northern world. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77227-238-3
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Inhabit Media
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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