A lovely family tribute.
Drawing on family history, Wyeth exalts intergenerational bonds and the heirloom that symbolizes them.
An author’s note details the African-American author’s discovery of her Irish forebear, Frances Stward, who immigrated to the United States in 1861. Wyeth takes artistic license in having Stward wear the titular “granddaughter necklace” during her Atlantic voyage, saying that this detail was inspired by “crystal beads worn by [her] mother and grandmother.” Stward’s “glittering necklace” is handed down from one generation to the next, and the story begins with Stward on the deck of a ship in a breathtaking seascape that Ibatoulline renders in warm, sunset colors. It then shifts to the narrator’s childhood as she asks her mother to retell the story of the necklace’s journey from one woman to the next. This storytelling moves back through time to Stward’s own gift of the necklace to her daughter born of her union with a free man of color. The closing scene shows the narrator giving the necklace to her own daughter in the present day. The story’s play with temporal space distinguishes the narrative, and Ibatoulline’s acryl-gouache paintings present ornate depictions of domestic scenes and stunning landscapes. The latter category of illustrations is the most successful, with some of the domestic scenes falling a bit flat with stiff renderings of human subjects.
A lovely family tribute. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-08125-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
Long-winded but uplifting nonetheless.
Comedian, singer, and YouTube star Rainbow urges readers not to let others dim their light.
Young Randy Rainbow lives life out loud. While his classmates wear “dull blue jeans and drab T-shirts,” he sports “brightly colored three-piece suits and sparkly bow ties,” paints his nails, and listens to Broadway albums. After being called a “weirdo” at school, he tries to tamp down his sparkly side. While helping his grandmother sort through some of her old belongings, he stumbles across a pair of magical cat-eye glasses that, according to Nanny, allow whoever puts them on to “be anything and anywhere [they] want.” After rocking the glasses at school and a number of other locations, Randy becomes popular and confident, but when he breaks them on the way to a birthday party, he’s despondent. Nanny reveals that the glasses never had any powers; the magic was in Randy all along. While the message about being true to oneself is an important one, the unevenly paced, wordy text often tells more than it shows. At times it feels as though the author’s trying to pad out a somewhat thin story; multiple examples of Randy sporting his new specs in a variety of scenarios drag quite a bit. Swirls of pink feature prominently in MacGibbon’s cartoon illustrations. Randy and Nanny are pale-skinned; hints in the text suggest that they may be Jewish.
Long-winded but uplifting nonetheless. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781250900777
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
A nicely inventive little morality “tail” for newly independent readers.
Two little rats decide to show the world how tough they are, with unpredictable results.
Louie and Ralphie Ratso want to be just like their single dad, Big Lou: tough! They know that “tough” means doing mean things to other animals, like stealing Chad Badgerton’s hat. Chad Badgerton is a big badger, so taking that hat from him proves that Louie and Ralphie are just as tough as they want to be. However, it turns out that Louie and Ralphie have just done a good deed instead of a bad one: Chad Badgerton had taken that hat from little Tiny Crawley, a mouse, so when Tiny reclaims it, they are celebrated for goodness rather than toughness. Sadly, every attempt Louie and Ralphie make at doing mean things somehow turns nice. What’s a little boy rat supposed to do to be tough? Plus, they worry about what their dad will say when he finds out how good they’ve been. But wait! Maybe their dad has some other ideas? LaReau keeps the action high and completely appropriate for readers embarking on chapter books. Each of the first six chapters features a new, failed attempt by Louie and Ralphie to be mean, and the final, seventh chapter resolves everything nicely. The humor springs from their foiled efforts and their reactions to their failures. Myers’ sprightly grayscale drawings capture action and characters and add humorous details, such as the Ratsos’ “unwelcome” mat.
A nicely inventive little morality “tail” for newly independent readers. (Fiction. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7636-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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