Suffused with and inspiring gratitude and joy. Amen.
A beautiful collection that manages to be both near-universal and deeply personal.
Wilder Award winner Paterson offers an essay before each section: “Gather Around the Table,” “A Celebration of Life,” “The Spirit Within” and “Circle of Community.” In each, she illuminates a small moment: the scent of an orange; watching a cicada emerge from its shell over a steamy summer hour. The words that follow come from the King James Bible and Hildegard of Bingen, from speeches (“I Have a Dream,” by Martin Luther King Jr.) and from poetry (snatches from Wendell Berry and e.e. cummings), from non–Judeo-Christian traditions (the Navajo “house made of dawn”) to songs (Bill Staines’ delightful “All God’s Critters”) and spirituals (“All of God’s Children Got a Song”). All of them indeed give thanks and praise. Readers can give thanks and praise for the illustrations, too: Scherenschnitte, cut-paper illustrations of extraordinary power. In borders and full pages and spot images, Dalton once again wields her scissors in pursuit of magic. From deceptively simple (a grasshopper, a bird’s nest, a candle flame) to extraordinarily complex (a border of sunflowers, a plethora of vegetables), the pictures are as meditative as the words. The final page is “Blessed be” in the calligraphy of Anne Robin.
Suffused with and inspiring gratitude and joy. Amen. (Picture book/poetry. 7 & up)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4521-1339-5
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
Beautifully creepy.
Sixth grader Bailee Heron must win a ghostly game to keep her town, her family, and herself from losing everything.
On Halloween in 1982, sixth grader Abigail Snook disappeared in the Bellwoods forest behind Beckett Elementary. Now, every Halloween, Beckett’s sixth graders have to play the Bellwoods Game, or her ghost will terrorize the town for the next year. If she catches you, and you don’t have a gift to sacrifice, the ghost will take something else—like your tongue. But if you manage to ring the old bell in the woods first, you’ll banish her for another year, and she’ll give you anything you want. Bailee, lover of all things horror, just wants things to go back to normal. Ever since the factory closed two years ago, her parents have worked long hours to make ends meet, often leaving Nan and Bailee alone. Then Nan got sick at the same time a vicious rumor ostracized Bailee from the rest of the class. Winning the game is Bailee’s only chance to set things right, but she soon learns everything is not as it seems in the town of Fall Hollow, where stories are weapons, friends come from strange places, and Abigail Snook isn’t the scariest thing hiding among the trees. This gorgeously illustrated, atmospheric, and evocative debut captures the fun of being scared and the hard truths of middle school. Bailee presents White; names and illustrations point to some racial diversity in secondary characters.
Beautifully creepy. (Supernatural. 9-13)Pub Date: July 18, 2023
ISBN: 9781665912501
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A Christmas cozy, read straight or bit by bit through the season.
Neither snow nor rain nor mountains of yummy cheese stay the carrier of a letter to Santa.
So carelessly does 8-year-old Oliver stuff his very late letter to Santa into the mailbox that it falls out behind his back—leaving Winston, a “small, grubby white mouse” with an outsized heart, determined to deliver it personally though he has no idea where to go. Smith presents Winston’s Christmas Eve trek in 24 minichapters, each assigned a December “day” and all closing with both twists or cliffhangers and instructions (mostly verbal, unfortunately) for one or more holiday-themed recipes or craft projects. Though he veers occasionally into preciosity (Winston “tried to ignore the grumbling, rumbling noises coming from his tummy”), he also infuses his holiday tale with worthy values. Occasional snowy scenes have an Edwardian look appropriate to the general tone, with a white default in place but a few dark-skinned figures in view. Less-crafty children will struggle with the scantly illustrated projects, which run from paper snowflakes to clothespin dolls and Christmas crackers with or without “snaps,” but lyrics to chestnuts like “The 12 Days of Christmas” (and “Jingle Bells,” which is not a Christmas song, but never mind) at the end invite everyone to sing along.
A Christmas cozy, read straight or bit by bit through the season. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-983-6
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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