Family ties come through as the keynote of this satisfying and positive sequel to Homecoming, which sees Dicey and her three younger siblings settled on Grandmother Tillerman's Chesapeake Bay farm. With Momma in a mental hospital and local rumors that old Mrs. Tillerman is "Crazy," it's a relief to find Grain a wise and capable, if sometimes eccentric upbringer. Dicey still worries about the younger children's school problems, but she new has help in handling them: Grain visits Sammy's second grade and wins him points by beating all the boys at marbles; and James, a bright and bookish ten, studies methods and teaches slow, shy Maybeth, who's talented in music but failing in school, to read. And, as family troubles present themselves, Grain brusquely counsels Dicey on the variously appropriate policies of holding on, reaching out, and letting go. Eventually the prickly Dicey acknowledges a friend in Mina, a black girl who recognizes that she and Dicey are the two eighth-grade brains, and another in Serf, a tenth-grader with a guitar, who visits for family songfests although Dicey, not ready for dates, turns down his invitation to a dance. Fat Mr. Lingerie, Maybeth's music teacher, becomes another family friend, coming forth with sitting services and money for the undertaker when Dicey and Grain must travel to the children's dying Momma in Boston. The sadness of these final scenes is tempered with the satisfaction of a chapter closed and the knowledge that, as Momma's awkward, mouse-faced doctor says lamely, "It is better this way." Through all the hardships, comforts, and passages, Dicey remains the sturdy presence we met in Homecoming; new she and Gram make a strong, crusty pair, and the other children come along according to their observantly individualized courses. A resilient family and a gratifying journey's end.
Pub Date: Oct. 22, 1982
ISBN: 0786263520
Page Count: 381
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1982
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite.
Humpty Dumpty, classically portrayed as an egg, recounts what happened after he fell off the wall in Santat’s latest.
An avid ornithophile, Humpty had loved being atop a high wall to be close to the birds, but after his fall and reassembly by the king’s men, high places—even his lofted bed—become intolerable. As he puts it, “There were some parts that couldn’t be healed with bandages and glue.” Although fear bars Humpty from many of his passions, it is the birds he misses the most, and he painstakingly builds (after several papercut-punctuated attempts) a beautiful paper plane to fly among them. But when the plane lands on the very wall Humpty has so doggedly been avoiding, he faces the choice of continuing to follow his fear or to break free of it, which he does, going from cracked egg to powerful flight in a sequence of stunning spreads. Santat applies his considerable talent for intertwining visual and textual, whimsy and gravity to his consideration of trauma and the oft-overlooked importance of self-determined recovery. While this newest addition to Santat’s successes will inevitably (and deservedly) be lauded, younger readers may not notice the de-emphasis of an equally important part of recovery: that it is not compulsory—it is OK not to be OK.
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62672-682-6
Page Count: 45
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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