As a little girl tells of her father’s death from cancer, she mixes tender memories and great pain in an unvarnished account. She and her dad take a trip to the places in Florida he loved when growing up. Her dad is funny and silly, and wonders, as they collect pink and white flamingo feathers, if maybe she’s a flamingo at heart. When they come home, she sits with him after school every day. She knows he is dying, and she’s not surprised when he goes to the hospital for the last time. At his funeral service, all of his friends bring her flamingos, as her father had asked them to do after his death. She fills the yard with them, then knocks them down in pain and in anger. Later, she carefully stands them up again, and scatters her father’s ashes under their feet. When the flamingos disappear under the snow, she dreams that they—and her dad—went back to Florida for the winter. Her father made a Year Book on her birthday each year full of his photographs; she takes all the mementos and flamingo feathers and puts them together for her own Year Book. The art is a wonderful collage mix: objects, torn paper, and childlike drawings colored in pencil or crayon, echo the honesty and realism in the text and are exactly what this little girl would have drawn or collected. Napoli (Daughter of Venice, 2002, etc.), who has written many intense tales for children and for teenagers, takes a page from her own life (and a nephew’s death) here, and transforms it into a wrenching, powerful, four-hanky story. (Picture book. 4-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-688-16796-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
Told from the point of view of two warring siblings, this could have been an engaging first chapter book. Unfortunately, the length makes it less likely to appeal to the intended audience. Jessie and Evan are usually good friends as well as sister and brother. But the news that bright Jessie will be skipping a grade to join Evan’s fourth-grade class creates tension. Evan believes himself to be less than clever; Jessie’s emotional maturity doesn’t quite measure up to her intelligence. Rivalry and misunderstandings grow as the two compete to earn the most money in the waning days of summer. The plot rolls along smoothly and readers will be able to both follow the action and feel superior to both main characters as their motivations and misconceptions are clearly displayed. Indeed, a bit more subtlety in characterization might have strengthened the book’s appeal. The final resolution is not entirely believable, but the emphasis on cooperation and understanding is clear. Earnest and potentially successful, but just misses the mark. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: April 23, 2007
ISBN: 0-618-75043-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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