Tangentially inspired by an old English ballad (LC's 398.2 designation is questionable), this tale of a maiden found unconscious on a snowy moor has grand atmosphere but some unresolved mysteries. The maiden, taken in and cared for by a shepherd, awakens and begs the shepherd's smallest dog to slay her; in death she becomes both a goose soaring into the sky and a new maiden. The shepherd, till this moment in despair over the disappearance of the original maiden (whom he has come to love), joyfully welcomes the new one as his life's companion, knowing nothing of the sorcery and shape-shifting. Readers never learn why the goose was imprisoned in human form, nor how she came to be on the moor, nor why she did not confide her plight to the shepherd. Bleak Scottish moors are the background for colored-pencil illustrations in chill tones of gray, buff, and midnight blue, with the maiden rendered in pre-Raphaelite, alabaster beauty. Howell (The Ugly Duckling, Putnam, 1990, etc.) makes fuller use of the original ballad than Singer (Sky Words, Macmillan, 1994, etc.), by working flowers named there into decorative panels and borders. An illuminated initial capital and Celtic interlaces on many pages help establish the mood of antiquity. An adapted version of the ballad appears as a preface. (Picture book. 8-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-688-08674-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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Playing on his customary theme that children have more on the ball than adults give them credit for, Clements (Big Al and Shrimpy, p. 951, etc.) pairs a smart, unhappy, rich kid and a small-town teacher too quick to judge on appearances. Knowing that he’ll only be finishing up the term at the local public school near his new country home before hieing off to an exclusive academy, Mark makes no special effort to fit in, just sitting in class and staring moodily out the window. This rubs veteran science teacher Bill Maxwell the wrong way, big time, so that even after Mark realizes that he’s being a snot and tries to make amends, all he gets from Mr. Maxwell is the cold shoulder. Matters come to a head during a long-anticipated class camping trip; after Maxwell catches Mark with a forbidden knife (a camp mate’s, as it turns out) and lowers the boom, Mark storms off into the woods. Unaware that Mark is a well-prepared, enthusiastic (if inexperienced) hiker, Maxwell follows carelessly, sure that the “slacker” will be waiting for rescue around the next bend—and breaks his ankle running down a slope. Reconciliation ensues once he hobbles painfully into Mark’s neatly organized camp, and the two make their way back together. This might have some appeal to fans of Gary Paulsen’s or Will Hobbs’s more catastrophic survival tales, but because Clements pauses to explain—at length—everyone’s history, motives, feelings, and mindset, it reads more like a scenario (albeit an empowering one, at least for children) than a story. Worthy—but just as Maxwell underestimates his new student, so too does Clement underestimate his readers’ ability to figure out for themselves what’s going on in each character’s life and head. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-82596-X
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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In this delightfully spare narrative in verse, Coretta Scott King Award–winning Grimes examines a marriage’s end from the perspective of a child.
Set mostly in the wake of her father’s departure, only-child Gabby reveals with moving clarity in these short first-person poems the hardship she faces relocating with her mother and negotiating the further loss of a good friend while trying to adjust to a new school. Gabby has always been something of a dreamer, but when she begins study in her new class, she finds her thoughts straying even more. She admits: “Some words / sit still on the page / holding a story steady. / … / But other words have wings / that wake my daydreams. / They … / tickle my imagination, / and carry my thoughts away.” To illustrate Gabby’s inner wanderings, Grimes’ narrative breaks from the present into episodic bursts of vivid poetic reminiscence. Luckily, Gabby’s new teacher recognizes this inability to focus to be a coping mechanism and devises a daily activity designed to harness daydreaming’s creativity with a remarkably positive result for both Gabby and the entire class. Throughout this finely wrought narrative, Grimes’ free verse is tight, with perfect breaks of line and effortless shifts from reality to dream states and back.
An inspirational exploration of caring among parent, teacher and child—one of Grimes’ best. (Poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59078-985-8
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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