Suffused with and inspiring gratitude and joy. Amen.
A beautiful collection that manages to be both near-universal and deeply personal.
Wilder Award winner Paterson offers an essay before each section: “Gather Around the Table,” “A Celebration of Life,” “The Spirit Within” and “Circle of Community.” In each, she illuminates a small moment: the scent of an orange; watching a cicada emerge from its shell over a steamy summer hour. The words that follow come from the King James Bible and Hildegard of Bingen, from speeches (“I Have a Dream,” by Martin Luther King Jr.) and from poetry (snatches from Wendell Berry and e.e. cummings), from non–Judeo-Christian traditions (the Navajo “house made of dawn”) to songs (Bill Staines’ delightful “All God’s Critters”) and spirituals (“All of God’s Children Got a Song”). All of them indeed give thanks and praise. Readers can give thanks and praise for the illustrations, too: Scherenschnitte, cut-paper illustrations of extraordinary power. In borders and full pages and spot images, Dalton once again wields her scissors in pursuit of magic. From deceptively simple (a grasshopper, a bird’s nest, a candle flame) to extraordinarily complex (a border of sunflowers, a plethora of vegetables), the pictures are as meditative as the words. The final page is “Blessed be” in the calligraphy of Anne Robin.
Suffused with and inspiring gratitude and joy. Amen. (Picture book/poetry. 7 & up)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4521-1339-5
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A Christmas cozy, read straight or bit by bit through the season.
Neither snow nor rain nor mountains of yummy cheese stay the carrier of a letter to Santa.
So carelessly does 8-year-old Oliver stuff his very late letter to Santa into the mailbox that it falls out behind his back—leaving Winston, a “small, grubby white mouse” with an outsized heart, determined to deliver it personally though he has no idea where to go. Smith presents Winston’s Christmas Eve trek in 24 minichapters, each assigned a December “day” and all closing with both twists or cliffhangers and instructions (mostly verbal, unfortunately) for one or more holiday-themed recipes or craft projects. Though he veers occasionally into preciosity (Winston “tried to ignore the grumbling, rumbling noises coming from his tummy”), he also infuses his holiday tale with worthy values. Occasional snowy scenes have an Edwardian look appropriate to the general tone, with a white default in place but a few dark-skinned figures in view. Less-crafty children will struggle with the scantly illustrated projects, which run from paper snowflakes to clothespin dolls and Christmas crackers with or without “snaps,” but lyrics to chestnuts like “The 12 Days of Christmas” (and “Jingle Bells,” which is not a Christmas song, but never mind) at the end invite everyone to sing along.
A Christmas cozy, read straight or bit by bit through the season. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-983-6
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Reads like a grown-up’s over-the-top effort to peddle a set of kid-friendly premises—a notion that worked for the author’s...
A boy asks Santa for a dinosaur and gets a life-changing experience.
Cribbing freely from any number of classic Christmas stories and films, musician/vlogger Fletcher places his 10-year-old protagonist, William, who uses a wheelchair, at the head of an all-white human cast that features his widowed dad, a girl bully, and a maniacal hunter—plus a dinosaur newly hatched from an egg discovered in the North Pole’s ice by Santa’s elves. Having stowed away on Santa’s sleigh, Christmasaurus meets and bonds with William on Christmas Eve, then, fueled by the power of a child’s belief, flies the lad to the North Pole (“It’s somewhere between Imagination and Make-Believe”) for a meeting with the jolly toymaker himself. Upon his return William gets to see the hunter (who turns out to be his uncle) gun down his dad (who survives), blast a plush dinosaur toy to bits, and then with a poster-sized “CRUNCH! GULP!” go down Christmasaurus’ hatch. In the meantime (emphasis on “mean”), after William spots his previously vicious tormenter, Brenda Payne, crying in the bushes, he forgives trespasses that in real life would have had her arrested and confined long ago. Seemingly just for laffs, the author tosses in doggerel-speaking elves (“ ‘If it’s a girl, can we call her Ginny?’ / ‘I think it’s a boy! Look, he’s got a thingy!’ ”) and closes with further lyrics and a list of 10 (secular) things to love about Christmas. Devries adds sugary illustrations or spot art to nearly every spread.
Reads like a grown-up’s over-the-top effort to peddle a set of kid-friendly premises—a notion that worked for the author’s The Dinosaur That Pooped a Planet (2017), but not here. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7330-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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