Gracefully teaches a critical life lesson.
Chia, an orphaned boy, is used to going to bed unloved and hungry until the night he hears an unusual noise.
Alone and with no one to care for him, Chia seeks refuge in the house of a rich man of the village, as is the custom. This winter, however, life is rough for everyone: Hunters and fishermen work hard, but they return home at night empty-handed. Still, Chia, like all the villagers, has chores to be done: cutting firewood, hauling water, feeding the dogs. One night, a fierce wind blasts open the door, and the rich man shouts for him to latch it. Chia will, but first he has a hunch. Going into the storm, he discovers Fox Man chopping at a glacier with a duguli. Spontaneously, Chia seizes the axe, reasoning that without it, Fox Man cannot continue causing the wind and snow. Chia narrates his story in the first person, describing his distress when Fox Man confronts him back in the rich man’s house, demanding his duguli back; he needs it for his work. Chia understands he’s done wrong and returns the tool—and the villagers’ fortunes improve. The Atwaters retell this Alaskan Dena’ina teaching story, learned from their great uncle, folding Dena’ina words in where appropriate. (Phonetic pronunciations are provided on the page, and there is a glossary in the backmatter.) Dwyer’s muted but lively use of color and line brings the story to life.
Gracefully teaches a critical life lesson. (Picture book/folk tale. 4-8)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5132-6267-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Alaska Northwest Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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