Children marching to the beat of different drummers may take comfort from this tale of a born musician who grows up playing alone, but never doubts that she will find kindred spirits one day. Violet is making music before she even leaves the maternity ward, but as she goes from rattle banging to pretend guitar, she can’t find anyone who will join in. Huliska-Beith chronicles her search, and ever-appreciative family audience, in lively, undulant multimedia collages that nicely capture both the rhythms of Violet’s music and the joy she takes in creating them. That joy is intensified when, playing in the park one day, she hears drums, a sax, and a voice chiming in; suddenly she’s in a band, with mates who, likewise, never gave up their search for others like them. That message adds an extra level of meaning generally missing from similar tales of young music-makers. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-8037-2740-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2003
Categories: CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS
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Lupica kicks off a new series starring a pair of 8-year-old twins who solve sports-themed mysteries.
Even the pleasures of competing in various events during his school’s Spirit Week dim a smidge for Zach Walker when the prized autographed baseball he brings to his third-grade class for show and tell vanishes. Happily, his bookish but equally sports-loving sister, Zoe, is on the case, and by the time of the climactic baseball game at week’s end, she has pieced together clues and deductions that lead to the lost treasure—which had not been stolen but batted through an open window by the teacher’s cat and stashed in a storage shed by the custodian. In the co-published sequel, The Half-Court Hero, the equally innocuous conundrum hangs on the identity of the mysterious “guardian angel” who is fixing up a run-down playground basketball court. Along with plenty of suspenseful sports action, the author highlights in both tales the values of fair play, teamwork, and doing the “right thing.” The Walker family presents white, but in both the narrative and Danger’s appropriately bland (if inappropriately static) illustrations, the supporting cast shows some racial and ethnic diversity.
Wholesome, uncomplicated fare for the younger Matt Christopher crowd. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-425-28936-5
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
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In a family memoir of the most affecting kind, readers are invited to a long-ago time in the Ozark Mountains and the story of a musician who owned “the clothes on his back and a fine old lionhead fiddle.” Fiddlin’ Sam is the inheritor of the peripatetic, minstrel’s life of his father, who taught Sam his art, saying, “This ain’t a gift, Son. It’s a loan. You gotta pass the music along.” Sam accepts the food that appreciative people give him, but politely refuses their offer of a bed. When a rattler bites him, Sam fears he has failed his calling; the music will die with him. In the feverish time that follows, someone takes care of him, a young man whom Sam hopes will take up the gift and carry it along—but the boy has other plans. In the years that follow, Sam meets another young man on the road who reminds him of the first one, and, indeed, is his son. Their path together lasts long enough for Sam to pass along his gift and its joys and burdens before he dies. An endpiece dedication allows readers to glimpse aspects of the story that are based in truth. A rhythmic refrain underscores the emotions of the story, and even acts as the vehicle of the ascension of Sam’s soul at death. Gerig’s watercolors deliver the scenic beauty of the region and carry their own version of a familial tribute. (Picture book. 4-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 10, 1999
ISBN: 0-87358-742-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Rising Moon
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS
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