Quietly and emotionally intelligent, this tale satisfies.
An ant farm adopted as a summer project becomes a means of healing.
Harvard and little brother Roger Corson’s pediatrician father hasn’t been the same since the mistake that killed a baby in his care five months ago. Hoping to find his center again, Dad decides to take the boys to his childhood home, the rural, inland Maine town of Kettle Hole, for the summer. They’re renting the home of one of Dad’s oldest friends, Mr. Knowles, who’s struggling to pay his deceased wife’s medical bills and has moved with his daughter, Neveah, into their barn. Ten-year-old Harvard quickly befriends aspiring poet Nevaeh, also 10, who writes poems and has asthma. When the mail-order ants intended for the ant farm Dad builds arrive dead—a fact Harvard is desperate to conceal from Dad—Nevaeh helps Harvard populate it with the carpenter ants somehow only they see marching through the house. As the summer progresses, Harvard learns about ants and tries to help his father heal. Harvard’s sensitive narration grounds readers as they navigate difficult emotional terrain, the authentically rendered setting providing a gently evocative backdrop. Culley neatly explores hard topics such as parental depression and financial precarity within a plot ever so slightly tinged with fantasy. Harvard and Roger are biracial; their mother is of Dominican heritage and their father’s White, like the Knowleses and most other residents of Kettle Hole.
Quietly and emotionally intelligent, this tale satisfies. (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-17577-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale.
After a tsunami devastates their habitat in the Salish Sea, a young orca and her brother embark on a remarkable adventure.
Vega’s matriarchal family expects her to become a hunter and wayfinder, with her younger brother, Deneb, protecting and supporting her. Invited to guide her family to their Gathering Place to hunt salmon, Vega’s underwater miscalculations endanger them all, and an embarrassed Vega questions whether she should be a wayfinder. When the baby sister she hoped would become her life companion is stillborn, a distraught Vega carries the baby away to a special resting place, shocking her grieving family. Dispatched to find his missing sister, Deneb locates Vega in the midst of a terrible tsunami. To escape the waters polluted by shattered boats, Vega leads Deneb into unfamiliar open sea. Alone and hungry, the young siblings encounter a spectacular giant whale and travel briefly with shark-hunting orcas. Trusting her instincts and gaining emotional strength from contemplating the vastness of the sky, Vega knows she must lead her brother home and help save her surviving family. In alternating first-person voices, Vega and Deneb tell their harrowing story, engaging young readers while educating them about the marine ecosystem. Realistic black-and-white illustrations enhance the maritime setting.
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale. (maps, wildlife facts, tribes of the Salish Sea watershed, environmental and geographical information, how to help orcas, author’s note, artist’s note, resources) (Animal fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-299592-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to...
A group of talking farm animals catches wind of the farm owner’s intention to burn the barn (with them in it) for insurance money and hatches a plan to flee.
Bond begins briskly—within the first 10 pages, barn cat Burdock has overheard Dewey Baxter’s nefarious plan, and by Page 17, all of the farm animals have been introduced and Burdock is sharing the terrifying news. Grady, Dewey’s (ever-so-slightly) more principled brother, refuses to go along, but instead of standing his ground, he simply disappears. This leaves the animals to fend for themselves. They do so by relying on their individual strengths and one another. Their talents and personalities match their species, bringing an element of realism to balance the fantasy elements. However, nothing can truly compensate for the bland horror of the premise. Not the growing sense of family among the animals, the serendipitous intervention of an unknown inhabitant of the barn, nor the convenient discovery of an alternate home. Meanwhile, Bond’s black-and-white drawings, justly compared to those of Garth Williams, amplify the sense of dissonance. Charming vignettes and single- and double-page illustrations create a pastoral world into which the threat of large-scale violence comes as a shock.
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to ponder the awkward coincidences that propel the plot. (Animal fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-33217-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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