Fast-paced and thought-provoking, though lacking the emotional resonance of his earlier work, Zindel gives young readers a taste of what life would have been like for a child living in a top secret American military base in the closing months of WWII. Twelve-year-old Stephen is curious—so curious in fact that he can’t help but try to discover the nature of the special hush-hush project his physicist father is deeply preoccupied with at Los Alamos’s technical lab. Readers will know immediately what Stephen does not, that his emotionally distant father is working on the development of the atomic bomb. With the help of an older boy, whose Russian father works for the military as a trainer of guard dogs, Stephen begins to investigate his father’s secret mission. Zindel captures the paranoid us versus them mood of the period, and his authoritative descriptions are vivid and feel authentic. The novel also convincingly encapsulates the moral and emotional ambivalence of the men working on the project. In the book’s most disturbing moment, Stephen’s father tells him that he never considered “how it [the bomb] might be used,” or how he and his fellow scientists would feel “when it was taken out of” their “hands.” The rather perfunctory climax manages to generate some suspense, but is too heavily foreshadowed to surprise. While this is not Zindel’s best writing, by cleverly intertwining fiction and fact, his distinctly atmospheric tale breathes life into an exceptional moment in American history. (chronology, important people, sources) (Fiction. 11 -13)
Pub Date: March 31, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-027812-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Miranda’s book counts the monsters gathering at a birthday party, while a simple rhyming text keeps the tally and surveys the action: “Seven starved monsters are licking the dishes./Eight blow out candles and make birthday wishes.” The counting proceeds to ten, then by tens to fifty, then gradually returns to one, which makes the monster’s mother, a purple pin-headed octopus, very happy. The book is surprisingly effective due to Powell’s artwork; the color has texture and density, as if it were poured onto the page, but the real attention-getter is the singularity of every monster attendee. They are highly individual and, therefore, eminently countable. As the numbers start crawling upward, it is both fun and a challenge to try to recognize monsters who have appeared in previous pages, or to attempt to stay focused when counting the swirling or bunched creatures. The story has glints of humor, and in combination with the illustrations is a grand addition to the counting shelf. (Picture book. 3-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201835-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
The Pumpkin Book (32 pp.; $16.95; Sept. 15; 0-8234-1465-5): From seed to vine and blossom to table, Gibbons traces the growth cycle of everyone’s favorite autumn symbol—the pumpkin. Meticulous drawings detail the transformation of tiny seeds to the colorful gourds that appear at roadside stands and stores in the fall. Directions for planting a pumpkin patch, carving a jack-o’-lantern, and drying the seeds give young gardeners the instructions they need to grow and enjoy their own golden globes. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1465-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
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