Young love, fifth-grade variety, portrayed with warmth and humor and that extra, penetrating touch one expects of Byars. Simon Newton has actually loved Cybil Ackerman since second grade when she supported him in a bad classroom moment shortly after his father left home. It was during the same "awful" period that Simon and fatherless Tony Angotti became friends—"sealed together by a mutual loss rather than mutual interest." But now Tony's lies and tricks as he attempts to beat Simon's time with Cybil cause Simon to question that friendship. When things come to a head with a mixed-up afternoon movie date, Simon's mother has some perceptive things to say about poor Tony, who will never realize that he's his own worst enemy. Crumb as he is, we've seen Tony's human side in some touching moments with his weepy grandfather. But the story's real emotional dimension comes from Simon's feelings about his absent father: in a few well-placed words Byars documents his evolution from the initial desolation and pathetic daydreams to the present dull ache and then, in his relationship with Tony, a facing-up that sets him apart from his irresponsible father. (The story's only flaw is Byars' implicit dig at long-hairs, environmentalists, and vegetarians, apropos this contrast.) Oh yes, the young hero does end up with the girl, on an after-the-movies bicycle ride more suited than the movie date to their age and inclinations.
Pub Date: April 27, 1981
ISBN: 0140343563
Page Count: 61
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1981
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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