The first part of this America at Work entry (see Drake, above) concentrates on Nick's life on an environmentally friendly onion farm, where his chores include sprouting and planting seedlings, watering, tending, and harvesting the onions. The second half focuses on Karin, who has grown up on a cattle ranch. Her chores include participating in summer cattle drives and rounding up cattle to be sold come fall. In spring there are new calves to care for, and branding. The text, along with Cupples's pleasant illustrations, make farming seem hard but profitable; unmentioned are the enormous struggles most farmers face to earn a living and maintain a family-run farm these days. With so many family farms going under, this book paints an unrealistic picture of rural life. Love and Drake skirt cattle-raising issues, too, e.g., the problems of overgrazing in the west, and pollution problems in the Midwest created by giant feedlots. A simplistic overview that presents the heart of farmers' lives, but not necessarily the meat. (index) (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 1-55074-451-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1998
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
A charming, true story about the encounter between the boy who would become chancellor at the University of California at Riverside and a librarian in Iowa. Tom†s Rivera, child of migrant laborers, picks crops in Iowa in the summer and Texas in the winter, traveling from place to place in a worn old car. When he is not helping in the fields, Tom†s likes to hear Papa Grande's stories, which he knows by heart. Papa Grande sends him to the library downtown for new stories, but Tom†s finds the building intimidating. The librarian welcomes him, inviting him in for a cool drink of water and a book. Tom†s reads until the library closes, and leaves with books checked out on the librarian's own card. For the rest of the summer, he shares books and stories with his family, and teaches the librarian some Spanish. At the end of the season, there are big hugs and a gift exchange: sweet bread from Tom†s's mother and a shiny new book from the librarianto keep. Col¢n's dreamy illustrations capture the brief friendship and its life-altering effects in soft earth tones, using round sculptured shapes that often depict the boy right in the middle of whatever story realm he's entered. (Picture book. 7-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-679-80401-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1997
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