A pioneer family travels from Independence, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, in a covered wagon some time in the 19th century. The five-month journey is briefly described in rhyming couplets beginning: “Covered wagon, / Bumpy road. / Plodding oxen, / Heavy load. / Mother, Father, / Baby John, / Bouncing, jouncing, / Moving on.” Along the way there are storms, mountains, deserts, and snowstorms, till at last the new homestead site is reached, where the land is cleared, and a sturdy cabin built. Not bad for five month’s work. The author concludes: “Sturdy windows, / Heavy doors, / Warm and safe now, / Happy snores.” The humorous, softly colored illustrations have an appealing folk quality and give a panoramic view of the landscape as they sweep across the double page. Illustrations follow the text and show the wagons moving from the green, wet prairie, up craggy, rocky paths and through parched dry deserts till they come at last to the California meadows lush with wild flowers. The illustrations are even more cheerful than the text. Travelers, says Kay, were “Weary, bleary, / Sweaty, hot,” but it sure doesn’t show. Upbeat and buoyant, the text and illustrations only hint at the awesome adventure, danger, or difficulty of the journey. Traveling west by covered wagon was no picnic, and this cheerful picture-book presentation tends to obscure rather than illuminate the difficulties of the historic journey west. Diane Stanley’s Roughing It on the Oregon Trail (p. 722) does a better job of capturing the flavor of the journey by wagon train. (Picture book/poetry. 7-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-399-22928-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-531-33140-7 Ketcham’s first book is based on an allegedly true story of a childhood incident in the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. It starts with a couple of pages regaling the Bach home and all the Johanns in the family, who made their fame through music. After his father’s death, Johann Sebastian goes to live with his brother, Johann Christoph, where he boasts that he is the best organist in the world. Johann Christoph contradicts him: “Old Adam Reincken is the best.” So Johann Sebastian sets out to hear the master himself. In fact, he is humbled to tears, but there is hope that he will be the world’s best organist one day. Johann Sebastian emerges as little more than a brat, Reincken as more of a suggestion than a character. Bush’s illustrations are most transporting when offering details of the landscape, but his protagonist is too impish to give the story much authority. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30140-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
Adler (also with Widener, Lou Gehrig, 1997, etc.) sets his fictional story during the week of July 14, 1932, in the Bronx, when the news items that figure in this tale happened. A boy gets a dime for his birthday, instead of the bicycle he longs for, because it is the Great Depression, and everyone who lives in his neighborhood is poor. While helping his friend Jacob sell newspapers, he discovers that his own father, who leaves the house with a briefcase each day, is selling apples on Webster Avenue along with the other unemployed folk. Jacob takes the narrator to Yankee Stadium with the papers, and people don’t want to hear about the Coney Island fire or the boy who stole so he could get something to eat in jail. They want to hear about Babe Ruth and his 25th homer. As days pass, the narrator keeps selling papers, until the astonishing day when Ruth himself buys a paper from the boy with a five-dollar bill and tells him to keep the change. The acrylic paintings bask in the glow of a storied time, where even row houses and the elevated train have a warm, solid presence. The stadium and Webster Avenue are monuments of memory rather than reality in a style that echoes Thomas Hart Benton’s strong color and exaggerated figures. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201378-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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