First published in 1951 by the late actress and poet, Keep Climbing, Girls gets renewed energy from the strong gouache images of Christie and the introduction from Hamilton. The story, with its percussive rhyme, is simple: Miss Nettie calls to the girl in her charge to get down out of the tree she’s climbed. However, the unnamed little girl already knows “little boys have the upper hand / in this world.” Despite Miss Nettie’s pleadings, she isn’t about to surrender the view from the top of the tallest bough, except on her own terms. Black, brown, gold and green make the bold palette of matte colors and powerful shapes Christie uses to such good effect. Both a period piece and a shout-out of encouragement, this is sure to find a new, responsive audience. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-4169-0264-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
Echoing Ashley Wolff’s 1988 approach to Stevenson’s poetic tribute to the power of imagination, Kirk begins with neatly drawn scenes of a child in a playroom, assembling large wooden blocks into, “A kirk and a mill and a palace beside, / And a harbor as well where my vessels may ride.” All of these acquire grand architectural details and toy-like inhabitants as the pages turn, until at last the narrator declares, “Now I have done with it, down let it go!” In a final twist, the young city-builder is shown running outside, into a well-kept residential neighborhood in which all the houses except his have been transformed into piles of blocks. Not much to choose between the two interpretations, but it’s a poem that every child should have an opportunity to know. (Picture book/poetry. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-689-86964-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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