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A WATER SNAKE'S YEAR

Name: A WATER SNAKE'S YEAR
Author: Doris Gove
ISBN: 0-689-31597-X

by Doris Gove & illustrated by Beverly Duncan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 30, 1991

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A title-spread cutaway illustration of the snake hibernating underground and a simple map locating her habitat in Tennessee's Great Smokies presage this fine book's careful regard for precision in every detail. Gove's lucid text covers a wealth of information—not just cycles of mating and giving birth, eating, shedding skin, and hibernating, but intriguing facts like how the snake emerges from water without leaving a telltale wet streak and the natural drama of her being swept downstream by a storm and then finding her way back to familiar territory. Duncan's lovely illustrations are as meticulous as the text, with each of the many plants shown in its appropriate season—violets and bluets when the snake emerges from hibernation in April, mountain laurel blooming at mating time in May. Relative size clues are also consistent and familiar (e.g., acorns). Each double-spread illustration gracefully accommodates a substantial amount of text in an ample space provided by an expanse of water, sky, or ground. An unusually felicitous blend of art, natural history, and thoughtful book design. Index. (Nonfiction. 7-11)*justify no*

Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1991

ISBN: 0-689-31597-X

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1991

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
RED-SPOTTED NEWT
by Doris Gove & illustrated by Beverly Duncan

- BOOK REVIEW
ONE RAINY NIGHT
by Doris Gove & illustrated by Walter Lyon Krudop

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HOW TÍA LOLA CAME TO (VISIT) STAY

From the Tía Lola Stories series , Vol. 1

by Julia Alvarez ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay.

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Renowned Latin American writer Alvarez has created another story about cultural identity, but this time the primary character is 11-year-old Miguel Guzmán.

When Tía Lola arrives to help the family, Miguel and his hermana, Juanita, have just moved from New York City to Vermont with their recently divorced mother. The last thing Miguel wants, as he's trying to fit into a predominantly white community, is a flamboyant aunt who doesn't speak a word of English. Tía Lola, however, knows a language that defies words; she quickly charms and befriends all the neighbors. She can also cook exotic food, dance (anywhere, anytime), plan fun parties, and tell enchanting stories. Eventually, Tía Lola and the children swap English and Spanish ejercicios, but the true lesson is "mutual understanding." Peppered with Spanish words and phrases, Alvarez makes the reader as much a part of the "language" lessons as the characters. This story seamlessly weaves two culturaswhile letting each remain intact, just as Miguel is learning to do with his own life. Like all good stories, this one incorporates a lesson just subtle enough that readers will forget they're being taught, but in the end will understand themselves, and others, a little better, regardless of la lengua nativa—the mother tongue.

Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay. (Fiction. 9-11)

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-375-80215-0

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
ALREADY A BUTTERFLY
by Julia Alvarez ; illustrated by Raúl Colón

- BOOK REVIEW
WHERE DO THEY GO?
by Julia Alvarez ; illustrated by Sabra Field

- BOOK REVIEW
HOW TÍA LOLA ENDED UP STARTING OVER
by Julia Alvarez

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RIVER STORY

by Meredith Hooper & illustrated by Bee Willey ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2000

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Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)