Adding to his successful I Can Read collection of poetry anthologies, Hopkins has compiled 12 verses related to the holiday from well-known authors such as Jane Yolen, Maria Fleming, and Lillian Fisher. Poems range from personal feelings of joy to those of wonder and awe. In the first poem by Fleming, entitled “Dizzy,” a euphoric sensation of twirling like a spinning top or dreidel is the main focus. Fisher’s “Hanukkah” shows all the holiday traditions as a remembrance of the miracle—“Bring the shamash, / light a candle, / say the ancient prayer. / Spin the dreidel, / give the gelt, / gather loved ones near. / Tell it again and marvel—‘A miracle happened here!’ ” Whimsical paintings full of swirls and curves in purples, blues, and greens complete the Judaic settings for each poem. Good, basic, and simple holiday reading. (index) (Easy reader/poetry. 5-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-008051-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2004
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
A touching, beautifully illustrated story of greatest interest to those in the New York City area.
A pair of cardinals is separated and then reunited when their tree home is moved to New York City to serve as the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.
The male cardinal, Red, and his female partner, Lulu, enjoy their home in a huge evergreen tree located in the front yard of a small house in a pleasant neighborhood. When the tree is cut down and hauled away on a truck, Lulu is still inside the tree. Red follows the truck into the city but loses sight of it and gets lost. The birds are reunited when Red finds the tree transformed with colored lights and serving as the Christmas tree in a complex of city buildings. When the tree is removed after Christmas, the birds find a new home in a nearby park. Each following Christmas, the pair visit the new tree erected in the same location. Attractive illustrations effectively handle some difficult challenges of dimension and perspective and create a glowing, magical atmosphere for the snowy Christmas trees. The original owners of the tree are a multiracial family with two children; the father is African-American and the mother is white. The family is in the background in the early pages, reappearing again skating on the rink at Rockefeller Center with their tree in the background.
A touching, beautifully illustrated story of greatest interest to those in the New York City area. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7733-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
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