There’s an elegiac quality to this gentle tale that takes place in a small town in Iowa on a Thursday afternoon in August of 1916. Tom Elson looks into the eyes of a mysterious animal, the farivox, and decides that he wants this animal more than he’s ever wanted anything. The farivox is said to be a rare animal, possibly extinct, that can talk in a human like voice. “Hurry!” Tom is sure he hears the farivox say, as he runs off to get the money to buy him. But Tom never sees the farivox again, for it is gone, just as if it had “dried up and been blown away by the hot August wind, like dust on one of Iowa’s long dirt roads.” Framed by stories of the demise of the passenger pigeon and other vanished species, the story holds out the hope that in some remote corner animals thought to be lost may linger on, and that someone, someday, may hear one of them whisper “Hurry.” McCully’s (Monk Camps Out, p. 480) luminous watercolors provide a perfect complement to this well-told tale that despite, or perhaps partly because of, its old-fashioned ambience and carefully paced telling, conveys the irrevocability of loss and gives added urgency to the meaning of “hurry.” (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-201579-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2000
Gooney Bird Greene (with a silent E) is not your average second grader. She arrives in Mrs. Pidgeon’s class announcing: “I’m your new student and I just moved here from China. I want a desk right smack in the middle of the room, because I like to be right smack in the middle of everything.” Everything about her is unusual and mysterious—her clothes, hairstyles, even her lunches. Since the second graders have never met anyone like Gooney Bird, they want to hear more about her. Mrs. Pidgeon has been talking to the class about what makes a good story, so it stands to reason that Gooney will get her chance. She tells a series of stories that explain her name, how she came from China on a flying carpet, how she got diamond earrings at the prince’s palace, and why she was late for school (because she was directing a symphony orchestra). And her stories are “absolutely true.” Actually, they are explainable and mesh precisely with the teacher’s lesson, more important, they are a clever device that exemplify the elements of good storytelling and writing and also demonstrate how everyone can turn everyday events into stories. Savvy teachers should take note and add this to their shelf of “how a story is made” titles. Gooney Bird’s stories are printed in larger type than the narrative and the black-and-white drawings add the right touch of sauciness (only the cover is in color). A hybrid of Harriet, Blossom, and Anastasia, irrepressible Gooney Bird is that rare bird in children’s fiction: one that instantly becomes an amusing and popular favorite. (Fiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-618-23848-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Walter Lorraine/Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0792-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
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