A true story, aside from snatches of invented dialogue, this account centers on a young blind man’s determination to become less dependent on the whims and charity of others. Following up a 1927 newspaper article about the use of dogs to help disabled vets in Europe, Morris Frank traveled alone from Tennessee to Switzerland—though it meant being “mailed” like a package via American Express, being locked in his stateroom at night and other indignities—to meet two animal trainers and Buddy, a German Shepard. Following a challenging but successful regimen designed to help them bond and to develop mutual trust, man and dog returned to the U.S., where they founded a school for seeing-eye teams that is still in existence. Told in simple language and illustrated with staid but competently done illustrations, much enhanced by a section of photos at the end, this serviceable alternative to Eva Moore’s Buddy, the First Seeing Eye Dog (1996), illus by Don Bolognese, imparts revealing insights both into how blind people were treated prior to the past few decades, and how complex the job of a seeing eye dog is. (Nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8075-5284-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look...
Winning actually isn’t everything, as jazz-happy Rooster learns when he goes up against the legendary likes of Mules Davis and Ella Finchgerald at the barnyard talent show.
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look good—particularly after his “ ‘Hen from Ipanema’ [makes] / the barnyard chickies swoon.”—but in the end the competition is just too stiff. No matter: A compliment from cool Mules and the conviction that he still has the world’s best band soon puts the strut back in his stride. Alexander’s versifying isn’t always in tune (“So, he went to see his cousin, / a pianist of great fame…”), and despite his moniker Rooster plays an electric bass in Bower’s canted country scenes. Children are unlikely to get most of the jokes liberally sprinkled through the text, of course, so the adults sharing it with them should be ready to consult the backmatter, which consists of closing notes on jazz’s instruments, history and best-known musicians.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58536-688-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
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