Designated fiction by LC, this account of the peregrinations of a Greenland meteorite is based on fact. Robert Peary found three meteorites on an early expedition, shipped them back to New York, and sold them to the American Museum of Natural History. In a highly anthropomorphized first-person treatment, Conrad endows the huge extraterrestrial with sensation and emotion (to be fair, so did Peary in Northward Over the Great Ice, 1898) and tells the story so completely from its point of view that questions go unanswered: What is the meteorite made of?. Why did the "snow people" (the local Inuit) chip pieces from it over hundreds of years? Why did the "new people" (Peary's expedition) labor so mightily over it? What does the name "Ahnighito" mean? Why did the meteorite interfere with the ship's compass? Etcetera. The fuller story of what Ahnighito meant to the Inuit, to Peary, and to the museum is simply not here. Highly textured illustrations feature a somber Arctic palette of grays, browns, and an intense cobalt blue. The bustling New York City scenes are reminiscent of Egielski's work in Yorinks's Oh, Brother (1989). Children may like the pictures better than the story; its appeal is limited by Conrad's choice of narrator. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: May 30, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-023322-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Gooney Bird Greene (with a silent E) is not your average second grader. She arrives in Mrs. Pidgeon’s class announcing: “I’m your new student and I just moved here from China. I want a desk right smack in the middle of the room, because I like to be right smack in the middle of everything.” Everything about her is unusual and mysterious—her clothes, hairstyles, even her lunches. Since the second graders have never met anyone like Gooney Bird, they want to hear more about her. Mrs. Pidgeon has been talking to the class about what makes a good story, so it stands to reason that Gooney will get her chance. She tells a series of stories that explain her name, how she came from China on a flying carpet, how she got diamond earrings at the prince’s palace, and why she was late for school (because she was directing a symphony orchestra). And her stories are “absolutely true.” Actually, they are explainable and mesh precisely with the teacher’s lesson, more important, they are a clever device that exemplify the elements of good storytelling and writing and also demonstrate how everyone can turn everyday events into stories. Savvy teachers should take note and add this to their shelf of “how a story is made” titles. Gooney Bird’s stories are printed in larger type than the narrative and the black-and-white drawings add the right touch of sauciness (only the cover is in color). A hybrid of Harriet, Blossom, and Anastasia, irrepressible Gooney Bird is that rare bird in children’s fiction: one that instantly becomes an amusing and popular favorite. (Fiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-618-23848-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Walter Lorraine/Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0792-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
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