A sad, subdued commemoration.
Free-verse reflections and observations in remembrance of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon.
Using conversational language, Jules adopts the voices of 19 local children: Kelvin (age 5) and Delia (17) both report feeling the shock of the initial explosion without understanding what’s happened, while 8-year-old Michael thinks of his older brother, who would go on to Afghanistan in the attack’s wake and never come back. Karima, 13, responds to news that American Muslims have been attacked in response: “ ‘But we live here. I was born here,’ I say. / ‘You still need to be careful,’ Dad answers, / his voice low and sad.” Aside from one child hearing a mention of “charred bodies” from Dad, a first responder (“My mom touches Dad’s lips / with her fingers. ‘Shh!’ she whispers. / ‘The kids are listening’ ”), any violence or devastation remains out of sight, both in the poems and in Rácz’s somber views of diversely hued figures with downcast eyes. An author’s note explains that Jules was working as a school librarian in Arlington, Virginia, on 9/11 and that the stories are “composites drawn from personal experiences with students and friends.” Following two final poems that mention vows to rebuild, as well as describing the Pentagon memorial that opened seven years later, the author appends a complete list of those who lost their lives in the tragedy.
A sad, subdued commemoration. (Picture book/poetry. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781638191520
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bushel & Peck Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sad indeed, but a little bland—though less traumatic in the telling than the stories of Jumbo or the Faithful Elephants...
In this true tale of an elephant that crushed a keeper after peacefully giving zoo visitors rides for nearly 40 years, Fenton tones the drama down to near nonexistence (for better or worse).
Arriving at the Melbourne Zoo as a youngster, Queenie began giving rides in 1905. She became such a fixture that children wrote her letters, her birthday was celebrated each year, and she even marched in the Centenary Floral Parade in 1934. After creating an endearing but not anthropomorphic portrait of her pachyderm protagonist, the author, warning that “Queenie’s story has a sad ending,” goes on to explain that even though the 1944 killing might have been just an accident, “the gentle Indian elephant was put to sleep.” Furthermore, she was never replaced; the elephants in today’s zoo occupy a habitat where they can “do just what elephants like to do.” Neither the incident itself nor Queenie’s end are specifically described or depicted, and Gouldthorpe’s illustrations, which look like old, hand-tinted photographs, put a nostalgic distance between viewers and events.
Sad indeed, but a little bland—though less traumatic in the telling than the stories of Jumbo or the Faithful Elephants (1988) killed at the Tokyo Zoo. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: June 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6375-9
Page Count: 25
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
Effectively soporific, though less broadly diverse in culture than casting.
Intricate cut-paper borders and figures accompany a set of sleepy-time lyrics and traditional rhymes.
Aside from “All the Pretty Little Ponies,” which is identified as “possibly African American,” the selections are a mostly Eurocentric sampling. It’s a mix of familiar anonymous rhymes (“Oh, how lovely is the evening,” “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, / Bless this bed that I lie on”) and verses from known authors, including Jane Taylor’s “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” (first verse only), Robert Louis Stevenson’s “My Bed is a Boat,” and Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Seal’s Lullaby.” Melodramatic lullabies such as “Rockabye Baby” have been excluded in favor of more pacifistic poems, and in keeping with the cozy tone (though she does show one cat looming hungrily over a mouse hole), Dalton enfolds each entry in delicately detailed sprays of leaves or waves, graceful garlands of flowers, flights of butterflies, and tidy arrangements of natural or domestic items, all set against black or dark backgrounds that intensify the soft colors. A parade of young people—clad in nightclothes and diverse of facial features, hair color and texture, and skin hue—follow a childlike, white angel on the endpapers and pose drowsily throughout.
Effectively soporific, though less broadly diverse in culture than casting. (Picture book/poetry. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4521-1673-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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