Struggles to reach the summit.
A young girl dreams of climbing mountains but must defy expectations to do so.
Having grown up in Yosemite, 11-year-old Floy now feels stifled by the classroom walls and gray skies of San Francisco, where her family was forced to move some months earlier. But all that changes when family decisions lead her back to Yosemite. Once she arrives, Floy feels more alive than ever, determined to summit Half Dome. But society’s expectations for a “young lady” in 1876 threaten that goal. Floy must either convince her father to take her along on one of his expeditions or scale it alone. Based on the life of Florence Hutchings, the first European American born in Yosemite, the story offers encouragement on its surface for children to follow their dreams. However, the premise itself—a white girl bucking conventions—limits its readership. While Floy lives fully, setting lofty goals beyond her station, Native character Sally Ann exists to serve; unlike Floy’s, her life is defined by the time “before,” and her dreams are likewise tied to tradition. Other moments prove problematic as well. Although describing Yosemite as a “sublime land” and Floy as a “pilgrim” might reflect white sentiments of the time, without clear counterbalances it reinforces the mythic principle of Manifest Destiny. And when Floy realizes that a changing world means “there will no longer be a place” for Sally Ann and her family, unacknowledged white privilege allows her to dismiss the uncomfortable feelings she experiences and avoid confronting truth.
Struggles to reach the summit. (hiking tips, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-930238-99-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Yosemite Conservancy
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Poignant and heartwarming.
Zephyrina the cat, the “Robin Hood of felines,” rescues discarded toys so they can have new lives.
Zephyrina brings toys back to the apartment she shares with Elizaveta and her daughter, Dasha, refugees from war-torn Ukraine. Dasha reconditions Zephyrina’s rescues and sets them outside for three days, just in case they have owners who want to reclaim them. Afterward, they join the other toys in the parlor—the Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured. Dasha and Elizaveta don’t know that the toys are sentient. At midnight they abandon their rigid daytime postures to cavort and play, overseen by their leader, Pocket, a tiny mascot bear made to comfort soldiers during World War I. One night, Zephyrina brings back a dirty old bear, and Pocket is astounded. The new arrival, Berwon, might come from a lost shipment of the first-ever stuffed bears, sent from Germany to the U.S. in 1903—and if so, he’s worth a fortune. In the ensuing antics, the unpleasant villain Picky Vicky covets Berwon, and a kind museum curator does, too, but for different reasons. Applegate’s writing is exquisitely nuanced; she couches profound themes in accessible language that depicts relatable situations. Gentle, generous Elizaveta and Dasha poignantly underscore the human impact of wars. Santoso’s enchanting, delicate, black-and-white illustrations bring the timeless feeling of a classic to this hopeful, humanizing story of the distressed looking out for each other.
Poignant and heartwarming. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781250904362
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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