An exciting tale of misadventure and rescue.
A little girl and her brother get in a bit of trouble on a farm in Bartel’s illustrated children’s book.
In this tale, set roughly a century in the past, Dora is a little girl who does everything with her big brother, Henry. One day, she spots a harvest parade arriving to their farm and calls out to her sibling to watch the workers help their father: “Some men connected the tractor with a long heavy belt to the threshing machine. Some lined up the grain wagons. Others drove the hayracks into the field of stooks and gathered the yellow sheaves with pitchforks, tossing them onto the racks.” (Thankfully, a glossary at the beginning of the book explains the farming jargon for youngsters.) The next day, Dora and Henry can’t resist playing on the yellow pile of straw. Henry has an idea to climb the old, firm brown straw pile to jump across to the fresh yellow one and slide down its side. Henry goes first and makes it across, but when Dora follows, she falls into a hollow and disappears into the quicksand-like straw. Henry yells for help and their mother and Willie, a farmhand, come running to rescue Dora. Thompson’s full-color cartoon illustrations depict the landscape with simple backgrounds, drawing attention to the foreground action, which is particularly helpful when the prose describes details of the harvest process. The text can be challenging at times, as it’s littered with vocabulary that many children may find unfamiliar, but the eloquence and elegance of the storytelling (alongside the aforementioned glossary) make the book quite readable. Questions about the setting’s specific time and place go unanswered, but there are hints in the author’s family photographs, included at the book’s beginning and end. Ultimately, the sibling bond and the cooperative spirit of the farm effectively undergird the educational details about traditional farming practices. The main characters are depicted with pale skin; background characters have a range of skin tones.
An exciting tale of misadventure and rescue.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781039196841
Page Count: 32
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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
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