A welcome addition to children’s literature about death and dying.
In this children’s picture book, a special bond between young Lily and her great-grandmother helps them through the elderly woman’s time at a hospice residence.
This story starts by explaining the main characters’ unusual names for each other. Lily’s great-grandmother is called “GG” for short, a fact that the book awkwardly explains by having the girl say, “I forget—why do we call you that?” When Lily asks about her own pet name, GG says mysteriously, “I call you Mamela, because you are close to my heart.” (It likely comes from the Yiddish word for “little girl”—literally, “little mother.”) Lily sums up, “You’re my GG and I’m you’re Mamela,” and GG answers, “And that’s the way it will always be,” setting up a refrain that repeats a bit too often throughout the text. Next, Lily visits GG’s apartment and learns how to make chicken soup with GG’s secret ingredient. In this part, the simple but emotionally resonant illustrations show GG looking hale and hearty, but “[a]fter dinner, GG felt tired,” which provides the only inkling of what’s to come. Readers may not be fully prepared when, “a few days later,” Lily’s father gently breaks the news that GG is dying. Lily responds by telling him that GG is at the top of a family tree she made in school; that night, she has a bad dream about GG falling off that family tree, which gives the book a nice, true-to-life touch. When Lily’s parents take her to the hospice residence, GG is in a wheelchair and suddenly looks much older. “You look…tired. Are you okay?” Lily asks. The next day, GG and Lily snuggle together while listening to a harpist play. The book pairs an ethereal illustration with lyrical text (“Ariel’s music wrapped around them just like GG’s rainbow afghan”), which truly captures the healing, transporting power of music in this setting. Shortly after making GG’s chicken soup with her father, Lily goes for a last visit and poignantly whispers in GG’s ear, “You are my Mamela. Because I love you with all my heart.”
A welcome addition to children’s literature about death and dying.Pub Date: April 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-0989930901
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lamb Press
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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