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THE WOLF

Name: THE WOLF
Author: Margaret Barbalet
ISBN: 0-02-711840-1

by Margaret Barbalet & illustrated by Jane Tanner ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 31, 1992

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An allegory concerning fear, with an almost painfully dark, heavy atmosphere: When a wolf begins to prowl outside each night, testing doors and windows, the lives of a mother and her children become cheerless and circumscribed. Tanner's brooding paintings offer a variety of visual cues—shadowed backgrounds, a child's tearful face, an eerily distorted stairway, a few fallen leaves below a page of text—while the wolf itself is never seen, making it all the more terrifying. At first, the family seems powerless; but as months go by, it's the wolf that grows weaker until at last one child summons the courage to open the door and sees only a thin, unmenacing creature. Obviously, the wolf is a symbol—but for what? Fear itself? Fear of something? Political or social oppression? Readers can make up their own minds; meanwhile, the author's suggestion that time will tame the wolf is debatable, but heartening. (Picture book. 7+)

Pub Date: March 31, 1992

ISBN: 0-02-711840-1

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1992

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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HOW TÍA LOLA CAME TO (VISIT) STAY

From the Tía Lola Stories series , Vol. 1

by Julia Alvarez ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay.

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Renowned Latin American writer Alvarez has created another story about cultural identity, but this time the primary character is 11-year-old Miguel Guzmán.

When Tía Lola arrives to help the family, Miguel and his hermana, Juanita, have just moved from New York City to Vermont with their recently divorced mother. The last thing Miguel wants, as he's trying to fit into a predominantly white community, is a flamboyant aunt who doesn't speak a word of English. Tía Lola, however, knows a language that defies words; she quickly charms and befriends all the neighbors. She can also cook exotic food, dance (anywhere, anytime), plan fun parties, and tell enchanting stories. Eventually, Tía Lola and the children swap English and Spanish ejercicios, but the true lesson is "mutual understanding." Peppered with Spanish words and phrases, Alvarez makes the reader as much a part of the "language" lessons as the characters. This story seamlessly weaves two culturaswhile letting each remain intact, just as Miguel is learning to do with his own life. Like all good stories, this one incorporates a lesson just subtle enough that readers will forget they're being taught, but in the end will understand themselves, and others, a little better, regardless of la lengua nativa—the mother tongue.

Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay. (Fiction. 9-11)

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-375-80215-0

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
ALREADY A BUTTERFLY
by Julia Alvarez ; illustrated by Raúl Colón

- BOOK REVIEW
WHERE DO THEY GO?
by Julia Alvarez ; illustrated by Sabra Field

- BOOK REVIEW
HOW TÍA LOLA ENDED UP STARTING OVER
by Julia Alvarez

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CORALINE

by Neil Gaiman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...

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A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.

Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.

Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)