DePaola is irresistible. In this simply told memoir, aimed directly at the hearts of his young readers, he follows 26 Fairmount Avenue (1999) and Here We All Are (p. 630) with more stories of his childhood. In this volume, his baby sister Maureen contracts pneumonia and has to be hospitalized, he gets a new outfit for the family’s trip to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, and he’s in a tap dance recital. He longs to get Miss Kiniry to be his first-grade teacher, even though she, like the principal, insists on spelling his first name “Tommy.” Other remembrances include a family outing to the beach, a “Tiny Tot” wedding, and getting his first library card. DePaola spins out these recollections with pitch-perfect intensity, warmth, energy, and a precise sense of how it felt to be a kid. Almost a primer on how to write with emotional directness for young people, this will also teach its readers a little on how to tell their own stories. Best of all it gives value to the comings and goings that make up a life, even one as unique as dePaola’s. Abundantly illustrated with wonderful vignettes and spot drawings of the cast of characters that includes all his friends and relations, it begs to be continued. More please. (Biography. 7-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-23583-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
This early reader is an excellent introduction to the March on Washington in 1963 and the important role in the march played by Martin Luther King Jr. Ruffin gives the book a good, dramatic start: “August 28, 1963. It is a hot summer day in Washington, D.C. More than 250,00 people are pouring into the city.” They have come to protest the treatment of African-Americans here in the US. With stirring original artwork mixed with photographs of the events (and the segregationist policies in the South, such as separate drinking fountains and entrances to public buildings), Ruffin writes of how an end to slavery didn’t mark true equality and that these rights had to be fought for—through marches and sit-ins and words, particularly those of Dr. King, and particularly on that fateful day in Washington. Within a year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed: “It does not change everything. But it is a beginning.” Lots of visual cues will help new readers through the fairly simple text, but it is the power of the story that will keep them turning the pages. (Easy reader. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-448-42421-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Puccini wins the prize for most-maligned great composer. In a fit of depressive self-deprecation, Puccini himself called his own music ``sugary,'' and the persistent popularity of his mature operas at box-offices around the world for nearly a century has too often provoked critical condescension, as if art so well-loved could not possibly be worth much. But that situation, thankfully, is changing, and this much-needed essay collection on Puccini by leading scholars of 19th- and 20th-century Italian opera is worth a good deal more than several new biographies. The volume ranges from a lengthy piece on Puccini's family by his granddaughter (one of the editors) to chapters devoted to Puccini's ``musical world'' and each of his operas by luminaries such as William Weaver, Harvey Sachs, Fedele D'Amico, Verdi heavyweights Mary Jane Phillips-Matz and Julian Budden, and William Ashbrook. A favorite: David Hamilton's expert investigation of the early Tosca recordings, especially the legendary ``Mapelson cylinders'' of live Metropolitan Opera performances from 1902-03, to see what light they shed on Puccini's original interpreters. The editors, perhaps hoping to attract non-musicologist admirers of the Luccan master, issue the disclaimer that ``this is not a work of scholarship'' (even though two of the chapters make a start on an accessible Puccini bibliography). They needn't have worried. Lovers of Puccini and Italian opera at every level of interest and knowledge will want this book. (Photographs—not seen)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1994
ISBN: 0-393-02930-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
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