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A CHILL IN THE AIR

Name: A CHILL IN THE AIR
Author: John Frank
ISBN: 0-689-83923-5

POEMS FOR FALL AND WINTER

by John Frank & illustrated by Mike Reed ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2003

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In simply phrased verses, nearly all previously unpublished, Frank notes in sequence autumn’s changing leaves and dropping temperatures, the appearance of snow, ice, and bitter winds, and then early signs of spring at last. Though the language sometimes turns clunky—“I ran to catch it in my hands / Before it touched the ground, / And brought it home to keep among / The treasures I have found”—there are occasional flights of imaginative imagery, plus redeeming flashes of humor, such as the suggestion that Halloween witches had better wear thermal underwear. Not so in the illustrations, though, as Reed’s leaden, sharp-looking, identically shaped leaves and stiffly posed human figures give many scenes a monotonous look, compounded on one spread by a child’s puff of breath that expands to a page-filling cloud, thus contradicting the accompanying “I see each word I speak / take flight / a whiff of fog, / then disappear.” Though there’s never enough poetry, particularly for younger audiences, this collaboration is too uneven to consider as more than a secondary choice. (Poetry. 5-7)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-689-83923-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2003

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
LEND A HAND
by John Frank ; illustrated by London Ladd

- BOOK REVIEW
KEEPERS
by John Frank & photographed by Ken Robbins

- BOOK REVIEW
HOW TO CATCH A FISH
by John Frank & illustrated by Peter Sylvada

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ALL THE COLORS OF THE EARTH

by Sheila Hamanaka ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1994

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This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994

ISBN: 0-688-11131-9

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
GRANDPARENTS SONG
by Sheila Hamanaka & illustrated by Sheila Hamanaka

- BOOK REVIEW
THE HOKEY POKEY
by Larry La Prise & Charles P. Macak & Taftt Baker & illustrated by Sheila Hamanaka

- BOOK REVIEW
BEBOP-A-DO-WALK!
by Sheila Hamanaka & illustrated by Sheila Hamanaka

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BLOCK CITY

by Robert Louis Stevenson & illustrated by Daniel Kirk ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2005

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Echoing Ashley Wolff’s 1988 approach to Stevenson’s poetic tribute to the power of imagination, Kirk begins with neatly drawn scenes of a child in a playroom, assembling large wooden blocks into, “A kirk and a mill and a palace beside, / And a harbor as well where my vessels may ride.” All of these acquire grand architectural details and toy-like inhabitants as the pages turn, until at last the narrator declares, “Now I have done with it, down let it go!” In a final twist, the young city-builder is shown running outside, into a well-kept residential neighborhood in which all the houses except his have been transformed into piles of blocks. Not much to choose between the two interpretations, but it’s a poem that every child should have an opportunity to know. (Picture book/poetry. 5-7)