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THE KITE THAT BRIDGED TWO NATIONS

HOMAN WALSH AND THE FIRST NIAGARA SUSPENSION BRIDGE

Memorable and dramatic.

A young kite enthusiast lends his skill to an engineering feat—the construction of the first suspension bridge downstream from Niagara Falls.

O’Neill’s narrator (16-year-old Homan Walsh in 1847, from the author’s note) recounts in free verse his entry in the kite-flying contest posed by the bridge’s engineer. The winner must anchor a line 240 feet across an 800-foot chasm between the United States and Canada above Whirlpool Rapids. Though his father is unimpressed by his passion for kite-flying, for the boy: “This is what I studied— / reading the wind, / calculating lift, / gauging line length....” He launches his carefully made kite from the Canadian side, knowing how the winds would work. As the wind drops at midnight, there’s “suddenly, a sag, a jerk. / The heavy line went slack! / It snapped on ice below.” The young hero waits (“Kind folks in Elgin sheltered me”) for ice to clear so he can return home to mend his rescued, broken kite for a second, successful attempt. Widener’s acrylic paintings capture the determination of the boy, the frozen, deeply chilly landscape, and the danger and power of the falls. In a later scene, the completed bridge imposes order on the wild waters below. Backmatter includes a timeline, source list and more complete story of what is actually known or surmised for the story’s telling.

Memorable and dramatic. (Fiction. 7-11)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-59078-938-4

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills

Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013

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THE WILD ROBOT

From the Wild Robot series , Vol. 1

Thought-provoking and charming.

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A sophisticated robot—with the capacity to use senses of sight, hearing, and smell—is washed to shore on an island, the only robot survivor of a cargo of 500.

When otters play with her protective packaging, the robot is accidently activated. Roz, though without emotions, is intelligent and versatile. She can observe and learn in service of both her survival and her principle function: to help. Brown links these basic functions to the kind of evolution Roz undergoes as she figures out how to stay dry and intact in her wild environment—not easy, with pine cones and poop dropping from above, stormy weather, and a family of cranky bears. She learns to understand and eventually speak the language of the wild creatures (each species with its different “accent”). An accident leaves her the sole protector of a baby goose, and Roz must ask other creatures for help to shelter and feed the gosling. Roz’s growing connection with her environment is sweetly funny, reminiscent of Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family. At every moment Roz’s actions seem plausible and logical yet surprisingly full of something like feeling. Robot hunters with guns figure into the climax of the story as the outside world intrudes. While the end to Roz’s benign and wild life is startling and violent, Brown leaves Roz and her companions—and readers—with hope.

Thought-provoking and charming. (Science fiction/fantasy. 7-11)

Pub Date: April 5, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-316-38199-4

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016

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THE PORCUPINE YEAR

From the Birchbark House series , Vol. 3

The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...

This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed. 

Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism. 

The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and enlightening. (Historical fiction. 9-11)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9

Page Count: 208

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008

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