Neighbors band together to help the local helper. Albert is known as the Fix-it Man and, with his flannel shirt and crisp overalls, he certainly looks the part. A smile peeks out of his snowy white beard as he patches Auntie Miller’s fence and fixes Mr. Jensen’s motor and re-hangs Akiko’s frayed clothesline. At night, he dreams about broken bicycles and loose floorboards. When Albert wakes up with a terrible cold, the sad news spreads quickly through the town. In no time at all, the people whom Albert has helped pile into the back of Mr. Jensen’s truck and visit the Fix-it Man. They bring nourishment and TLC to his bedside; later Albert drifts off into a recuperative sleep, dreaming of tomorrow’s projects. This is a warmly affecting story of (multicultural) community, greatly enhanced by Paschkis’s stylish watercolor illustrations. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-56145-433-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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