Mixing an embarrassing Mom with Starshine’s first period, plus an accident for Grandma results in a light-hearted confection that wants to touch your heart without risking real pain. There’s nothing bleak here, as Starshine’s mother Miracle is obviously a pie-eyed idealist determined to make the world a better place—and hauling Starshine along for the ride. To prevent the demise of some oak trees, Miracle takes to living in a convenient tree house, attracting the media, who seem determined to embarrass her daughter rather than stick to actual news. Mr. Charbonet, best friend’s dad, fills in when the diligent caretaker grandmother falls and is taken to the hospital. Starshine may act out in her panic about who is going to take care of her, but readers will know that her world is full of loving adults, including the grim, demanding English teacher who clues Starshine in on how to figure out who her real father is. This is for tender readers who can’t handle a big wallop, and it succeeds in filling the bill by providing a modicum of suspense and a picture of a 13-year-old stepping into the adult world safely, if not easily. Sugar for that young adolescent sweet tooth. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6453-2
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
There is something profoundly elemental going on in Smalls’s book: the capturing of a moment of unmediated joy. It’s not melodramatic, but just a Saturday in which an African-American father and son immerse themselves in each other’s company when the woman of the house is away. Putting first things first, they tidy up the house, with an unheralded sense of purpose motivating their actions: “Then we clean, clean, clean the windows,/wipe, wipe, wash them right./My dad shines in the windows’ light.” When their work is done, they head for the park for some batting practice, then to the movies where the boy gets to choose between films. After a snack, they work their way homeward, racing each other, doing a dance step or two, then “Dad takes my hand and slows down./I understand, and we slow down./It’s a long, long walk./We have a quiet talk and smile.” Smalls treats the material without pretense, leaving it guileless and thus accessible to readers. Hays’s artwork is wistful and idyllic, just as this day is for one small boy. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-316-79899-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
Picture-book debuts for both author and illustrator result in an affectionate glimpse of intergenerational bonds. Juno loves to get letters in the red-and-blue bordered airmail envelopes that come from his grandmother, who lives in Korea, near Seoul. He cannot read Korean, but he opens the letter anyway, and learns what he can from what his grandmother has sent: a photograph of herself and her new cat, and a dried flower from her garden. When his parents read him the letter, he realizes how much he learned from the other things his grandmother mailed to him. He creates some drawings of himself, his parents, house, and dog, and sends them along with a big leaf from his swinging tree. He gets back a package that includes drawing pencils and a small airplane—the grandmother is coming to visit. The messages that can be conveyed without words, language differences between generations, and family ties across great distances are gently and affectingly handled in this first picture book. The illustrations, done in oil-paint glazes, are beautifully lit; the characters, particularly Grandmother, with her bowl of persimmons, her leafy garden, and her grey bun that looks “like a powdered doughnut,” are charming. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-88252-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
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