A sensitive tale takes a wry look at the sometimes prickly and often painful path of children’s social relationships. Minnie is devastated when she hears her best friend Charles mention a party at his house on Saturday and then doesn’t receive an invitation. In true Murphy’s Law tradition, Minnie is surrounded by reminders of celebrations: her spelling words for the week are about parties, her pajamas have a confetti theme printed on them, and party stores accidentally call her home. As the week preceding the party drags on, Minnie becomes increasingly despondent. However, Minnie’s tale does have a happy ending. On the big day, Minnie discovers Charles at the local ball field and happily learns that the party was for his sister, not him. Bluthenthal (Meaner Than Meanest, 2001, etc.) neatly balances Minnie’s growing despair with a compassionate yet comical flare, using cartoon-style watercolor illustrations as a humorous foil for the text. Minnie conjures up a myriad of reasons why Charles’s invite did not reach her; thinking perhaps the invitation went to the wrong home or maybe even something more dire. Featured next to these statements are Minnie’s vivid imaginings: a nose-pierced Mohawk-styled adolescent looks bewilderedly at a party invite in one thought cloud and a whirling tornado carries off an entire mailbox in another. While it skirts the heavy issue of how to cope when a child is truly left out of an important gathering of peers, Bluthenthal’s understanding tale offers readers the solace of knowing that everyone at one time or another struggles with feeling left out. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-84141-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
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
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...
Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.
The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-934133-57-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Mackinac Island Press
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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