Halperin (When Chicken Grow Teeth, 1996, etc.) offers an ode to young entrepreneurs who happen to be her children, and the involvement of relatives, neighbors, and friends. Joel, Lane, and Kale collectively narrate how the November doldrums in rural coniferous Michigan led to their starting a business with the clippings from a neighbor’s Christmas tree farm. The business became the College Fund Wreath Company, intended to earn money for the children’s educations. It starts out as a modest affair, with a sideline during the summer months in a lemonade stand, but grows and grows until it is a full-fledged enterprise renting out space downtown, filling wholesale orders, taking on employees. The folksy tone and endearing details hold interest, and the can- do attitude is borne out by the results—$16,000 taken in as the book closes on a helpful glossary. The illustrations—delicate, vivacious clusters of pencil-and-watercolor images of people working—generate a light of their own, turning each righthand page into a multi-framed visual telling that enhances the anecdotes and intrigue of the text on the left. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-531-30089-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1998
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0792-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
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