How do you answer the question implied in this title? Beautifully, powerfully and truthfully, as Walker and Vitale demonstrate in language and images accessible even to very young children. The lines, “War has bad manners / War eats everything / In its path / & what / It doesn’t / Eat / It / Dribbles / On:” float over an image of a once-beautiful old city, now blasted and sere. War destroys unthinkingly—from bright green frogs to ancient sculpture, from pumas and parakeets to blessed and needful water. War is blind to nursing mothers and boys with donkeys. Walker’s language is perfectly plainspoken without being coarse, laid over Vitale’s jewel-like color and riot of images from the sublime (a village by a lake) to the scary (a poisonous green fog covering a bright forest). Disembodied eyes, bombs like darts, paint sculpted into terrifying monster shape, echo and reinforce the strength of the language. Children deserve to see this, and adults need to be ready to discuss it with them. (Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-075385-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
Will and his little brother Steve face third grade and kindergarten in this over-the-top chapter book in the venerable Step-Into-Reading series for new readers. Will knows that going to the same school as his brother is going to be a challenge, but he does not know how much of a challenge it will be. From the moment Will has to hold Steve’s hand and take him to kindergarten, everything that can go wrong does. Whether Steve is slamming all the lockers, making faces through the third-grade window or starting a food fight in the cafeteria, he’s embarrassing his older brother. Expressive and stylized color illustrations add to the exaggerated plot lines. A comfortable, predictable ending on the bench outside of the principal’s office will make new readers everywhere smile with recognition. No one will mistake this for a lesson book about back to school, but new readers will find many reasons to laugh out loud with Will and Steve. (Fiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: July 10, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-375-83904-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
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