This slow-moving story that, for all its unconventional elements, may not satisfy readers, stars Petey, a child with a fear of heights. In rural 1944 West Virginia, however, he has no choice but to walk across a high and narrow train trestle to get to school, and he cannot do it alone. All the members of his family are suffering: his sister, Loni, a talented artist who lost an eye a year before in the car crash that killed their father, refuses to return to school; their mother, Alita, still loves and mourns her dead husband. Stone, an artist who takes Loni under his wing, is a psychologically damaged former POW, but he is also the catalyst to pushing the family across a metaphorical trestle. Slate lightens the atmosphere considerably through Alita’s quirky, often incomprehensible language (her favorite expression is “Geeszoy!”), and the family’s journey is one of small, realistic steps: Petey copes with a bully; Alita confronts their tyrannical landlord when he accuses Stone of molesting Loni; Loni get a glass eye; Petey is thereby inspired to conquer his fear. Stone asks Alita to marry him, and the family looks forward to a new life in Seattle—a sweet ending to a story that has a lively narrative style and a loving family at its center. Patient readers will be rewarded. (Fiction. 10-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7614-5053-X
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
PLB 0-688-13166-2 King Midas And The Golden Touch ($16.00; PLB $15.63; Apr.; 32 pp.; 0-688-13165-4; PLB 0-688-13166-2): The familiar tale of King Midas gets the golden touch in the hands of Craft and Craft (Cupid and Psyche, 1996). The author takes her inspiration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s retelling, capturing the essence of the tale with the use of pithy dialogue and colorful description. Enchanting in their own right, the illustrations summon the Middle Ages as a setting, and incorporate colors so lavish that when they are lost to the uniform gold spurred by King Midas’s touch, the point of the story is further burnished. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-13165-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
Lunge-Larsen and Preus debut with this story of a flower that blooms for the first time to commemorate the uncommon courage of a girl who saves her people from illness. The girl, an Ojibwe of the northern woodlands, knows she must journey to the next village to get the healing herb, mash-ki- ki, for her people, who have all fallen ill. After lining her moccasins with rabbit fur, she braves a raging snowstorm and crosses a dark frozen lake to reach the village. Then, rather than wait for morning, she sets out for home while the villagers sleep. When she loses her moccasins in the deep snow, her bare feet are cut by icy shards, and bleed with every step until she reaches her home. The next spring beautiful lady slippers bloom from the place where her moccasins were lost, and from every spot her injured feet touched. Drawing on Ojibwe sources, the authors of this fluid retelling have peppered the tale with native words and have used traditional elements, e.g., giving voice to the forces of nature. The accompanying watercolors, with flowing lines, jewel tones, and decorative motifs, give stately credence to the story’s iconic aspects. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90512-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
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