A touching and genuine exhortation that just teeters on the edge of sentimentality but is lifted by a strong purpose:...
Wood and Lynch pair once more (Grandad’s Prayers of the Earth, 1999) to celebrate the simple joys of individual moments.
Every action, whether it be smelling the earth after a rain shower or savoring the first bite of a red, ripe strawberry, is unique and personal. “There are so many things in the world, / so many important things / to be taught, / to be shown” Wood imparts, “But the best things… / No one can discover them but you.” Children strive to find a place in the world where they feel significant. Allowing them to own these moments, and cherish them, is an important step, and Wood’s articulation of this truth should strike chords of recognition in both children and adults. Lynch’s softly smudged oil paintings, drenched in sun- and moonlight, match the gentle flow of this sensory walk through nature. City-dwellers may not have experienced all of these specific actions, but they should feel encouraged to come up with a list of their own.
A touching and genuine exhortation that just teeters on the edge of sentimentality but is lifted by a strong purpose: Self-discovery can be found in the most surprisingly simple of moments. (Picture book. 6 & up)Pub Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7636-3848-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Thought-provoking and charming.
A sophisticated robot—with the capacity to use senses of sight, hearing, and smell—is washed to shore on an island, the only robot survivor of a cargo of 500.
When otters play with her protective packaging, the robot is accidently activated. Roz, though without emotions, is intelligent and versatile. She can observe and learn in service of both her survival and her principle function: to help. Brown links these basic functions to the kind of evolution Roz undergoes as she figures out how to stay dry and intact in her wild environment—not easy, with pine cones and poop dropping from above, stormy weather, and a family of cranky bears. She learns to understand and eventually speak the language of the wild creatures (each species with its different “accent”). An accident leaves her the sole protector of a baby goose, and Roz must ask other creatures for help to shelter and feed the gosling. Roz’s growing connection with her environment is sweetly funny, reminiscent of Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family. At every moment Roz’s actions seem plausible and logical yet surprisingly full of something like feeling. Robot hunters with guns figure into the climax of the story as the outside world intrudes. While the end to Roz’s benign and wild life is startling and violent, Brown leaves Roz and her companions—and readers—with hope.
Thought-provoking and charming. (Science fiction/fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-38199-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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