A bittersweet, old-fashioned story of a young girl growing up in Ventura County, Calif., in 1907. Raised by her Great-aunt Mehitabel and her Chinese manservant Woo Ling, Carly finds that her weekly visits to their house in town are full of love and family fun. But at the ranch her father manages for her aunt, tensions abound. Her mother, once a pampered debutante but now an invalid, rarely acknowledges her youngest daughter. Her father, a failed teacher from Maine, is a strict disciplinarian. On top of that, the richest man in town wants to buy the family ranch; because they won't sell, he has denied them valuable water rights. Luckily, 11-year-old Carly has a strong enough sense of self to face the strains of everyday life as well as the deaths of her mother and her dog. Into this story Snyder weaves a fine sense of time and place, from Fourth of July picnics to dusty mule-rides into the foothills; and her prose flows, with images tapping all the senses. Carly's fascination with the great, ugly condors effectively captures turn-of-the-century California and creates a rhythm that connects the incidents in Carly's life and maintains the story's tension.
Pub Date: Sept. 18, 1987
ISBN: 0375895175
Page Count: 209
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1987
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cute and sprightly but not a standout.
Deck the stalls?
A bevy of barnyard animals, a cat, and some dogs get fully into the Christmas spirit by sprucing up the farm with colorful decorations, including holly berries and sparkling baubles. They have a great time and sing while going about their merry chores in a manner somewhat in keeping with the rhythm of the classic tune “Deck the Halls.” (In fact, a flock of sheep are shown holding song sheets for it.) As might be expected with these particular celebrants, some of the familiar lyrics are altered just a bit; for instance, “boughs of holly” is “translated” as “cows and holly.” Adult readers expecting the rhythm here to work exactly as it does in the original will be disappointed, because it doesn’t—it’s clunky. This is merely a brief, lightweight spoof of the familiar ditty, so it’s recommended that grown-ups read rather than sing this—except for that final line!—to very young targeted audiences, who may be unfamiliar with the actual song anyway. Some fun is still to be had in the illustrations, however. The spirited, wittily expressive animal characters are depicted having a fine time romping about and producing a variety of onomatopoeic sounds throughout. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Cute and sprightly but not a standout. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66591-435-2
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Boynton Bookworks
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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