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MY GRANDMOTHER’S CLOCK

Name: MY GRANDMOTHER’S CLOCK
Author: Geraldine McCaughrean
ISBN: 0-618-21695-2

by Geraldine McCaughrean & illustrated by Stephen Lambert ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 2002

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Compulsive clock-watchers may come away from this poetic disquisition with some truer ways of telling time. When a child suggests that the grandfather clock in her grandmother’s house needs fixing, Grandma explains that she has many other ways of measuring time: heartbeats, pages of a book, bathwater going cold, shadows under a tree. She tells days of the week by the smell of bread baking, the clatter of garbagemen, and other cues: longer intervals by the moon and tides, flowers and temperatures, “comets in their ellipses, the sun and moon’s eclipses,” and even the stars, which also teach that “time’s just too big to fit inside any watch or clock.” Lambert (Nobody Rides the Unicorn, 2000, etc.) uses muted, clear colors and softly rounded forms to give his scenes of child and grandparents rambling down country roads or along the shore, planting the garden, making snowballs, or just sitting together, a peaceful, idyllic air. An eloquent, compelling invitation to children to think deep thoughts and not to take the over-scheduled life for granted. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2002

ISBN: 0-618-21695-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Clarion Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2002

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
A TALE OF TWO DRAGONS
by Geraldine McCaughrean ; illustrated by Peter Malone

- BOOK REVIEW
WHERE THE WORLD ENDS
by Geraldine McCaughrean

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GLORIOUS ADVENTURES OF THE SUNSHINE QUEEN
by Geraldine McCaughrean

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A BIKE LIKE SERGIO'S

by Maribeth Boelts ; illustrated by Noah Z. Jones ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 2016

Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...

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Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.

This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.

Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PURPLE PUFFY COAT
by Maribeth Boelts ; illustrated by Daniel Duncan

- BOOK REVIEW
KAIA AND THE BEES
by Maribeth Boelts ; illustrated by Angela Dominguez

- BOOK REVIEW
HAPPY LIKE SOCCER
by Maribeth Boelts & illustrated by Lauren Castillo

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RUSSELL THE SHEEP

by Rob Scotton & illustrated by Rob Scotton ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2005

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Scotton makes a stylish debut with this tale of a sleepless sheep—depicted as a blocky, pop-eyed, very soft-looking woolly with a skinny striped nightcap of unusual length—trying everything, from stripping down to his spotted shorts to counting all six hundred million billion and ten stars, twice, in an effort to doze off. Not even counting sheep . . . well, actually, that does work, once he counts himself. Dawn finds him tucked beneath a rather-too-small quilt while the rest of his flock rises to bathe, brush and riffle through the Daily Bleat. Russell doesn’t have quite the big personality of Ian Falconer’s Olivia, but more sophisticated fans of the precocious piglet will find in this art the same sort of daffy urbanity. Quite a contrast to the usual run of ovine-driven snoozers, like Phyllis Root’s Ten Sleepy Sheep, illustrated by Susan Gaber (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)