Dreams become a leitmotif in this story of personal and cultural identity—with some muddled success. Ana and her mother live in the US, but Ana knows that her mother dreams of returning to Costa Rica, where she grew up, and dreams and aspirations—or the lack thereof—inform her conversations with others in the neighborhood. A volcanic stone from Costa Rica triggers a dream—the sleeping kind—in which Ana, in the form of a blackbird, flies to Costa Rica and sees her grandparents, triggering a dream—the aspirational kind—that she and her mother will one day go to Costa Rica together. The story never really comes together, as the exploration of goals and aspirations shifts awkwardly into the dream-exploration of Ana’s ancestral home; the reader is left with some appreciation of the need for goals and of the need for an understanding of cultural heritage, but here, the mixing of the two dilutes both messages. Ochre-tinged paintings feature flat perspectives and a heavy, almost naïve style, relying on light to convey emotion. Ultimately, the whole thing falls flat, despite good intentions. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 2, 2004
ISBN: 0-374-36242-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Melanie Kroupa/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2004
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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