An important guide to finding strength after trauma for children and guardians alike.
The aftermath of a natural disaster becomes an educational narrative.
Narrated by a boy coming back to school following a wildfire that canceled classes for two weeks, this book is intended to help young people grappling with similar events. The first section deals with the return to school in paragraphs broken up by related, colored pencil–esque images. The boy learns strategies for dealing with trauma (writing, drawing, taking deep breaths). It’s not until the second section that readers discover exactly what happened, though the author’s introduction details the 2017 California wildfires that inspired the book. This section describes the fire and the boy and his family’s evacuation, giving readers a child’s-eye view that, amid the chaos, grounds itself in people’s kindness. The narrator’s reaction to the fire evolves over time; sometimes he feels angry, other times sad and lost. Moments of frustration are conveyed, too: “My emotions exploded,” he says, alongside an image of a mushroom cloud. However, seeing his friends again makes him feel happy; the child’s emotional journey will reassure both young people and adults. Interspersed news clippings describe what is happening in the community at large, though the narrator mostly focuses on his personal journey. At the end, however, he discusses worldwide disasters, and he and his classmates send encouraging messages to kids in Australia, where wildfires also raged.
An important guide to finding strength after trauma for children and guardians alike. (resiliency and coping worksheet, additional resources) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: July 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781433840692
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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