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
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...
Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.
The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-934133-57-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Mackinac Island Press
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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