An evocative story about recovering from grief for readers of any age.
A young girl finds purpose in life after losing a loved one in Bird’s debut middle-grade novel.
Twelve-year-old Clare Burch has lived with her mother, Helen, and her maternal grandparents, Grandma Lulu and her beloved Grandpa Anthony, for most of her life. One New Year’s Eve, Grandpa Anthony collapses from a heart attack while making dinner. Clare is the only family member at home, so she calls the paramedics and stays with him until they get to the hospital. When he ultimately dies, Clare is devastated. In his will, Grandpa Anthony requested that Grandma Lulu, Helen, and Clare spend a summer together in the family cabin in Alwyn, Wisconsin, where Clare used to vacation with him and her mom. He also asked that they scatter his ashes in the lake there. Clare doesn’t want to leave her two best friends, Emmy and Olive, and her swim team—and she doesn’t want to leave Grandpa Anthony’s ashes in Wisconsin. He’s always been the person who held the family together, and she wonders what will happen now. But what starts as a trip full of uncertainty and apprehension for Clare, Helen, and Grandma Lulu ends up being a journey of self-discovery as they navigate their grief and reconnect with one another. For Clare, specifically, the voyage allows her to open up, make new friends, and enjoy life. Over the course of the novel, Bird craftily balances the family’s story with beautiful descriptions of Wisconsin landscapes while focusing on Clare’s emotions and realizations as she learns to believe in herself and to accept the loss of a loved one. The characters are relatable and sometimes quite funny, and Clare’s ruminations are thoughtful yet appropriate for a girl her age: “We’re each pointing in our very own direction,” she reflects toward the end of the novel while looking at what she, Grandma Lulu, and her mother have accomplished during their stay. Each manages to find the motivation she needs to keep going.
An evocative story about recovering from grief for readers of any age.Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64538-283-6
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Orange Hat Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though Jim may have been grumpy because a chimp’s an ape and not a monkey, readers will enjoy and maybe learn from his...
It’s a wonderful day in the jungle, so why’s Jim Panzee so grumpy?
When Jim woke up, nothing was right: "The sun was too bright, the sky was too blue, and bananas were too sweet." Norman the gorilla asks Jim why he’s so grumpy, and Jim insists he’s not. They meet Marabou, to whom Norman confides that Jim’s grumpy. When Jim denies it again, Marabou points out that Jim’s shoulders are hunched; Jim stands up. When they meet Lemur, Lemur points out Jim’s bunchy eyebrows; Jim unbunches them. When he trips over Snake, Snake points out Jim’s frown…so Jim puts on a grimacelike smile. Everyone has suggestions to brighten his mood: dancing, singing, swinging, swimming…but Jim doesn’t feel like any of that. He gets so fed up, he yells at his animal friends and stomps off…then he feels sad about yelling. He and Norman (who regrets dancing with that porcupine) finally just have a sit and decide it’s a wonderful day to be grumpy—which, of course, makes them both feel a little better. Suzanne Lang’s encouragement to sit with your emotions (thus allowing them to pass) is nearly Buddhist in its take, and it will be great bibliotherapy for the crabby, cranky, and cross. Oscar-nominated animator Max Lang’s cartoony illustrations lighten the mood without making light of Jim’s mood; Jim has comically long arms, and his facial expressions are quite funny.
Though Jim may have been grumpy because a chimp’s an ape and not a monkey, readers will enjoy and maybe learn from his journey. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-553-53786-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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