Another of Jonah Twist's third-grade classmates is featured in Honeycutt's series about a San Francisco neighborhood with the kind of lively kids, nice parents, and pervasive common sense and good humor that distinguish Cleary's Klickitat Street. Lydia Jane and her little sister have an amiable relationship; it's as much in Gabrielle's defense as her own that Lydia Jane undertakes a campaign to change their latest day-care arrangement, at a place where unimaginative Mrs. Humphrey's concern for safety squelches all but the most placid activity. An au pair is beyond the family's means, and Grandma—a former science professor who sympathizes with Lydia Jane's penchant for stimulating if often disruptive inquiry—has her own life to live; still, when Lydia Jane tries to enlist Grandma's aid, she urges a healthy, and feasible, solution. Meanwhile, Lydia Jane (obviously a handful) has skillfully negotiated with her busy parents (Mom's a welder); and pursued such activities as using the library to find out how to preserve raccoon tracks. An entertaining contemporary story that will find a ready audience. (Fiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1993
ISBN: 0-02-744362-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1993
Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0792-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
A charming, true story about the encounter between the boy who would become chancellor at the University of California at Riverside and a librarian in Iowa. Tom†s Rivera, child of migrant laborers, picks crops in Iowa in the summer and Texas in the winter, traveling from place to place in a worn old car. When he is not helping in the fields, Tom†s likes to hear Papa Grande's stories, which he knows by heart. Papa Grande sends him to the library downtown for new stories, but Tom†s finds the building intimidating. The librarian welcomes him, inviting him in for a cool drink of water and a book. Tom†s reads until the library closes, and leaves with books checked out on the librarian's own card. For the rest of the summer, he shares books and stories with his family, and teaches the librarian some Spanish. At the end of the season, there are big hugs and a gift exchange: sweet bread from Tom†s's mother and a shiny new book from the librarianto keep. Col¢n's dreamy illustrations capture the brief friendship and its life-altering effects in soft earth tones, using round sculptured shapes that often depict the boy right in the middle of whatever story realm he's entered. (Picture book. 7-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-679-80401-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1997
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