Hensley’s is not an ordinary store. No matter what a customer needs—even if he or she doesn’t know what it is—Old John, the owner, has it somewhere. When Molly and Kate move to town with their mother, they wander in and are presented with the ideal candy. They visit often, and Kate confides that she can’t get a cat because of her sister’s allergies. Old John suspects there’s more to the story, and he’s proven right when Molly has an asthma attack, and Kate and Molly’s mother can’t pay the doctor’s bill. But Hensley’s always has what a customer needs, even a way to improve the family’s finances and the means for the girls to adopt a pet. Polacco’s story is sweet and comforting, and her trademark pen-and-marker illustrations capture the feeling of a general store still hanging on in middle America (Hensley’s actually exists). While in reality such a story may not end so perfectly, readers will be happy to see that the bubble that encloses Hensley’s does not burst. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-399-24538-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
One of the watershed moments in African-American history—the defeat of James Braddock at the hands of Joe Louis—is here given an earnest picture-book treatment. Despite his lack of athletic ability, Sammy wants desperately to be a great boxer, like his hero, getting boxing lessons from his friend Ernie in exchange for help with schoolwork. However hard he tries, though, Sammy just can’t box, and his father comforts him, reminding him that he doesn’t need to box: Joe Louis has shown him that he “can be the champion at anything [he] want[s].” The high point of this offering is the big fight itself, everyone crowded around the radio in Mister Jake’s general store, the imagined fight scenes played out in soft-edged sepia frames. The main story, however, is so bent on providing Sammy and the reader with object lessons that all subtlety is lost, as Mister Jake, Sammy’s father, and even Ernie hammer home the message. Both text and oil-on-canvas-paper illustrations go for the obvious angle, making the effort as a whole worthy, but just a little too heavy-handed. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58430-161-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
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