Erdrich (Birchbark House, 1999, etc.) draws multiple meanings from the title in a poetic reminiscence founded on childhood memories. First, there’s an actual wood-burning, cast-iron stove with “Range Eternal” embossed on its oven door, at which the narrator’s mother used to stand. Then, while remembering how its warmth used to keep the wintry Windigo at bay on cold nights, the narrator recalls peering into its firebox, and being carried away on its flames and smoke: “I saw the range of the buffalo . . . I ran the deer range. I ran the bear range . . . I flew the sky, the range of herons, of cranes, hawks, and eagles. I saw the Range Eternal.” Using billows of soft, subtly nuanced color, Johnson and Fancher (New York’s Bravest, p. 961, etc.) not only evoke those transformative dreams, but also capture a sense of how that stove formed a focal point in the lives of that child and her isolated family. Now an adult, the writer misses something in her life, until a chance glimpse into an antique shop allows her to regain the Range Eternal, in both literal and figurative senses. The metaphor may have more meaning for adults, but children too will be captivated by the lyrical art and prose. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7868-0220-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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Hank Zipzer, poster boy for dyslexic middle graders everywhere, stars in a new prequel series highlighting second-grade trials and triumphs.
Hank’s hopes of playing Aqua Fly, a comic-book character, in the upcoming class play founder when, despite plenty of coaching and preparation, he freezes up during tryouts. He is not particularly comforted when his sympathetic teacher adds a nonspeaking role as a bookmark to the play just for him. Following the pattern laid down in his previous appearances as an older child, he gets plenty of help and support from understanding friends (including Ashley Wong, a new apartment-house neighbor). He even manages to turn lemons into lemonade with a quick bit of improv when Nick “the Tick” McKelty, the sneering classmate who took his preferred role, blanks on his lines during the performance. As the aforementioned bully not only chokes in the clutch and gets a demeaning nickname, but is fat, boastful and eats like a pig, the authors’ sensitivity is rather one-sided. Still, Hank has a winning way of bouncing back from adversity, and like the frequent black-and-white line-and-wash drawings, the typeface is designed with easy legibility in mind.
An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-448-48239-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In describing how his parents met, Say continues to explore the ways that differing cultures can harmonize; raised near San Francisco and known as May everywhere except at home, where she is Masako, the child who will grow up to be Say’s mother becomes a misfit when her family moves back to Japan. Rebelling against attempts to force her into the mold of a traditional Japanese woman, she leaves for Osaka, finds work as a department store translator, and meets Joseph, a Chinese businessman who not only speaks English, but prefers tea with milk and sugar, and persuades her that “home isn’t a place or a building that’s ready-made or waiting for you, in America or anywhere else.” Painted with characteristic control and restraint, Say’s illustrations, largely portraits, begin with a sepia view of a sullen child in a kimono, gradually take on distinct, subdued color, and end with a formal shot of the smiling young couple in Western dress. A stately cousin to Ina R. Friedman’s How My Parents Learned To Eat (1984), also illustrated by Say. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90495-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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