Wallace tells a story about his grandfather, who worked in the mines. It is a touching tale about the son of a coal miner, who goes with his father for the first time to work underground. “You’ll be a good miner, boy,” says the father. “You have coal in your blood same as me.” His mother tells him, “Take care, my son. You know the deeps is dangerous.” Father and son file into a steel cage and are lowered into the darkness with all the other miners. It is exhausting work, and the boy falls asleep during lunch. While they are working in the afternoon, the ceiling in the mine collapses, knocking them to the ground, and giving them a scare as they dig themselves out. “They headed toward the steel cage, the light, and home. Tomorrow they would go down into the deeps again, for they were miners and that was their job.” Wallace’s simple and direct language gives the story power; the textured and shadowy illustrations, as still as photographs, convey what it was like to grow up long ago, when a boy went to do a man’s work, and toiled willingly alongside his Da. (Picture book. 6-11)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7894-2569-6
Page Count: 36
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
There is something profoundly elemental going on in Smalls’s book: the capturing of a moment of unmediated joy. It’s not melodramatic, but just a Saturday in which an African-American father and son immerse themselves in each other’s company when the woman of the house is away. Putting first things first, they tidy up the house, with an unheralded sense of purpose motivating their actions: “Then we clean, clean, clean the windows,/wipe, wipe, wash them right./My dad shines in the windows’ light.” When their work is done, they head for the park for some batting practice, then to the movies where the boy gets to choose between films. After a snack, they work their way homeward, racing each other, doing a dance step or two, then “Dad takes my hand and slows down./I understand, and we slow down./It’s a long, long walk./We have a quiet talk and smile.” Smalls treats the material without pretense, leaving it guileless and thus accessible to readers. Hays’s artwork is wistful and idyllic, just as this day is for one small boy. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-316-79899-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
Picture-book debuts for both author and illustrator result in an affectionate glimpse of intergenerational bonds. Juno loves to get letters in the red-and-blue bordered airmail envelopes that come from his grandmother, who lives in Korea, near Seoul. He cannot read Korean, but he opens the letter anyway, and learns what he can from what his grandmother has sent: a photograph of herself and her new cat, and a dried flower from her garden. When his parents read him the letter, he realizes how much he learned from the other things his grandmother mailed to him. He creates some drawings of himself, his parents, house, and dog, and sends them along with a big leaf from his swinging tree. He gets back a package that includes drawing pencils and a small airplane—the grandmother is coming to visit. The messages that can be conveyed without words, language differences between generations, and family ties across great distances are gently and affectingly handled in this first picture book. The illustrations, done in oil-paint glazes, are beautifully lit; the characters, particularly Grandmother, with her bowl of persimmons, her leafy garden, and her grey bun that looks “like a powdered doughnut,” are charming. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-88252-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
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