A reassuring teaching story about a new home in a neighborhood that readers will recognize from DiSalvo’s earlier work (Grandpa’s Corner Store, 2000) with the spirit of her City Green (1994). In the old days, says Andy, he and his parents and sisters lived in a tiny apartment that was never quite warm enough. On Saturday mornings he and his sister would take a pile of quarters and brown-bag lunches and go to the Soap & Go on Viola Street to do the family’s laundry. He learns that the boarded-up houses across the street from the Laundromat are being purchased and renovated, and families interested could assist in the work and then be in line for a house themselves. Andy and his parents work hard every weekend for a house that the Tran family moves into; then they learn that the next house to be renovated the following spring will be theirs. A note explains the Habitat for Humanity “sweat equity” program and names other programs that help people get their own homes. Once again, DiSalvo has focused on the value of community, this one populated with a variety of ethnicities. Andy’s is a little less distinctive, but it could be Italian or Latino. Warm colors enrich the cityscape vistas of laundromat, streets, and interiors reflecting the glow of shared efforts. Rewarding. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-17690-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
One of the watershed moments in African-American history—the defeat of James Braddock at the hands of Joe Louis—is here given an earnest picture-book treatment. Despite his lack of athletic ability, Sammy wants desperately to be a great boxer, like his hero, getting boxing lessons from his friend Ernie in exchange for help with schoolwork. However hard he tries, though, Sammy just can’t box, and his father comforts him, reminding him that he doesn’t need to box: Joe Louis has shown him that he “can be the champion at anything [he] want[s].” The high point of this offering is the big fight itself, everyone crowded around the radio in Mister Jake’s general store, the imagined fight scenes played out in soft-edged sepia frames. The main story, however, is so bent on providing Sammy and the reader with object lessons that all subtlety is lost, as Mister Jake, Sammy’s father, and even Ernie hammer home the message. Both text and oil-on-canvas-paper illustrations go for the obvious angle, making the effort as a whole worthy, but just a little too heavy-handed. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58430-161-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
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