Beautiful, but this pond is a little shallow.
When a beloved pond experiences a catastrophic flood, it’s up to speedy Spencer Chamberlain to alert residents downstream of the coming danger.
Steeped in historical detail, Ibatoulline’s elegant, photorealistic watercolors paint rich portraits of all four seasons of pond and people in a 19th-century Vermont village. Children fish, cows graze, and, on July 4 each year, a footrace is a highlight of the festivities. “Big and strong” Chamberlain wins every year, but when the village is hit with epic rains one summer, he finds himself facing a new—and far more critical—race as he attempts to outpace the torrential waters of the flooded Long Pond to warn his neighbors. Thanks to him, all survive except for the pond itself, which drains but recovers as a thriving marsh. There’s a gentle wholesomeness here; this is the kind of story that will appeal to kids who long to try on bonnets and churn butter, yet it’s marred by verbosity and an odd pacing that feels laggy in a book about a quickly developing disaster. It’s not clear what story the author is attempting to tell—is this a Paul Bunyan–like folktale? If so, Chamberlain never feels fleshed out enough to qualify. If the pond is the focus, then failing to mention that the disaster is a result of human actions, as noted in the backmatter, seems like an oversight. All characters present white.
Beautiful, but this pond is a little shallow. (Picture book. 5-12)Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781536219982
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Absolutely wonderful in every way.
A long-forgotten chapter in New York City history is brilliantly illuminated.
In mid-19th-century New York, horses and horse-drawn vehicles were the only means of transportation, and the din created by wheels as they rumbled on the cobblestones was deafening. The congestion at intersections threatened the lives of drivers and pedestrians alike. Many solutions were bandied about, but nothing was ever done. Enter Alfred Ely Beach, an admirer of “newfangled notions.” Working in secret, he created an underground train powered by an enormous fan in a pneumatic tube. He built a tunnel lined with brick and concrete and a sumptuously decorated waiting room for passenger comfort. It brought a curious public rushing to use it and became a great though short-lived success, ending when the corrupt politician Boss Tweed used his influence to kill the whole project. Here is science, history, suspense, secrecy, and skulduggery in action. Corey’s narrative is brisk, chatty, and highly descriptive, vividly presenting all the salient facts and making the events accessible and fascinating to modern readers. The incredibly inventive multimedia illustrations match the text perfectly and add detail, dimension, and pizazz. Located on the inside of the book jacket is a step-by-step guide to the creative process behind these remarkable illustrations.
Absolutely wonderful in every way. (author’s note, bibliography, Web resources) (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-375-87071-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
Utterly compelling.
The authors of Fatty Legs (2010) distill that moving memoir of an Inuit child’s residential school experience into an even more powerful picture book.
“Brave, clever, and as unyielding” as the sharpening stone for which she’s named, Olemaun convinces her father to send her from their far-north village to the “outsiders’ school.” There, the 8-year-old receives particularly vicious treatment from one of the nuns, who cuts her hair, assigns her endless chores, locks her in a dark basement and gives her ugly red socks that make her the object of other children’s taunts. In her first-person narration, she compares the nun to the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, a story she has heard from her sister and longs to read for herself, subtly reminding readers of the power of literature to help face real life. Grimard portrays this black-cloaked nun with a scowl and a hooked nose, the image of a witch. Her paintings stretch across the gutter and sometimes fill the spreads. Varying perspectives and angles, she brings readers into this unfamiliar world. Opening with a spread showing the child’s home in a vast, frozen landscape, she proceeds to hone in on the painful school details. A final spread shows the triumphant child and her book: “[N]ow I could read.”
Utterly compelling. (Picture book/memoir. 5-9)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-55451-490-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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