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GONE IS GONE

Name: GONE IS GONE
Author: Wanda Gag
ISBN: 0816642435

OR THE STORY OF A MAN WHO WANTED TO DO HOUSEWORK

by Wanda Gag ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1935

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A wee bit of a book and the story of a man who wanted to do housework. He tried it — once — and decided that his wife didn't have quite such an easy time as he thought she had and decides to stick to his own job. Humor and good-natured fun at the man's expense — and absurd pictures with the Wanda Gag flavor. The size of the book is a sure bid for popularity.

Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1935

ISBN: 0816642435

Page Count: 76

Publisher: Coward-McCann

Review Posted Online: April 25, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1935

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
JORINDA AND JORINGEL
by The Brothers Grimm ; adapted by Wanda Gag ; illustrated by Margot Tomes

- BOOK REVIEW
NOTHING AT ALL
by Wanda Gag

- BOOK REVIEW
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
adapted by Wanda Gag

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NIGHT IN THE CITY

by Julie Downing ; illustrated by Julie Downing ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 14, 2023

Will make readers fall in love with the city depicted within.

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From a nurse to an emergency dispatcher, a look at the city dwellers whose work begins when the sun goes down.

Reading this book is like looking through a telescope—there are windows on nearly every page; some pages feature rectangular, windowlike vignettes of people at work. On the front cover, a taxi driver is visible through the side window of a cab, with a dog sitting up in the back seat. Above them, on an upper floor, a museum worker is doing some vacuuming, with dinosaur bones in the background. Many of the people can be seen only from a great distance, and the details we learn about them often come from just a few spare sentences: “The museum is closed, but the janitor and security guard are hard at work.” Downing’s blue-tinged, cozy artwork sometimes makes words almost unnecessary—in this case, the accompanying illustration says it all, a full spread showing the janitor reaching up to dust the nose of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. Most of the people who are working late seem to be smiling, and while it’s difficult to find a message in the limited text, readers will close the book feeling that there’s joy to be found in every job and every schedule. The residents of this urban environment are diverse in skin tone. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Will make readers fall in love with the city depicted within. (Picture book. 3-5)

Pub Date: March 14, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-8234-5206-4

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
ELSA'S CHESSBOARD
by Jenny Andrus ; illustrated by Julie Downing

- BOOK REVIEW
HELLO, SUN
by Julie Downing ; illustrated by Julie Downing

- BOOK REVIEW
HELLO, MOON
by Julie Downing ; illustrated by Julie Downing

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THE NEWSPAPER CLUB

From the Newspaper Club series , Vol. 1

by Beth Vrabel ; illustrated by Paula Franco ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2020

Nellie Bly’s contemporary namesake does her proud.

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Eleven-year-old Nellie’s investigative reporting leads her to solve a mystery, start a newspaper, and learn key lessons about growing up.

Nellie’s voice is frank and often funny—and always full of information about newspapers. She tells readers of the first meeting of her newspaper club and then says, “But maybe I’m burying the lede…what Dad calls it when a reporter puts the most interesting part…in the middle or toward the end.” (This and other journalism vocabulary is formally defined in a closing glossary.) She backtracks to earlier that summer, when she and her mother were newly moved into a house next to her mother’s best friend in rural Bear Creek, Maine. Nellie explains that the newspaper that employed both of her parents in “the city” had folded soon after her father left for business in Asia. When Bear Creek Park gets closed due to mysterious, petty crimes, Nellie feels compelled to investigate. She feels closest to her dad when on the park’s swings, and she is more comfortable interviewing adults than befriending peers. Getting to know a plethora of characters through Nellie’s eyes is as much fun as watching Nellie blossom. Although astute readers will have guessed the park’s vandalizers, they are rewarded by observing Nellie’s fact-checking process. A late revelation about Nellie’s father does not significantly detract from this fully realized story of a young girl adjusting admirably to new circumstances. Nellie and her mother present white; secondary characters are diverse.

Nellie Bly’s contemporary namesake does her proud. (Fiction. 8-12)