Despite the cozy illustrations and interesting source material, this tale doesn’t thrill.
An East German family escapes to the West in a homemade hot air balloon.
This account of a family’s clever escape from the German Democratic Republic opens by painting a picture of young Peter Wetzel’s East German world. From the beginning, Fulton does not show much confidence in her young readers, eschewing meaningful age-appropriate discussion of government suppression and violence for complaints of “scratchy uniforms” and the baffling suggestion that East Germany did not have children’s television programming. Readers watch through Peter’s eyes as his parents slowly and secretly build a hot air balloon to take them to the West. This surprising true story is accompanied by warm, accomplished illustrations that conjure a strong sense of place and time. There is some evocative description in the text, such as the shocking loudness of a car door when one is trying to be quiet. However, the overall tone feels affected and never quite climbs to a level of tension suitable for the subject. The author even leaves a potentially nail-biting moment—the Wetzels give up on the balloon only to be forced to make a final attempt under threat of discovery by the secret police—to the backmatter. Also hidden in the backmatter is the dubious implication that Ronald Reagan was ultimately responsible for the fall of the wall.
Despite the cozy illustrations and interesting source material, this tale doesn’t thrill. (historical notes, author’s note) (Informational picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-4960-8
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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