Best friends Raymond and Graham bring their usual antics to the game of baseball in their annual attempt to win the Millcreek Little League Championship (Raymond and Graham Rule the School, 2009). The class bully is on the rival team, and it will take all of the dynamic duo’s best efforts to make the most of their advantages and overcome the difficulties ahead. The increased pressure from female spectators’ presence really gets to Raymond, especially when yellow Gatorade spills down the front of his uniform pants. Learning the coaching signs provides added opportunities for confusion as the games progress. While Raymond worries, Graham has confidence to spare in his baseball skills (and most everything else). Both boys are learning the ins and outs of the game, but the humor inherent in their interactions goes far beyond baseball. Knudson’s focus on sports adds some flair to a series that is already winning fans and providing enjoyment for third- and fourth-grade readers who like the slightly larger-than-usual font, the short chapters and Curtis’s appealing illustrations. (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: March 4, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-670-01205-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2010
Categories: CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS
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Who is next in the ocean food chain? Pallotta has a surprising answer in this picture book glimpse of one curious boy. Danny, fascinated by plankton, takes his dory and rows out into the ocean, where he sees shrimp eating those plankton, fish sand eels eating shrimp, mackerel eating fish sand eels, bluefish chasing mackerel, tuna after bluefish, and killer whales after tuna. When an enormous humpbacked whale arrives on the scene, Danny’s dory tips over and he has to swim for a large rock or become—he worries’someone’s lunch. Surreal acrylic illustrations in vivid blues and red extend the story of a small boy, a small boat, and a vast ocean, in which the laws of the food chain are paramount. That the boy has been bathtub-bound during this entire imaginative foray doesn’t diminish the suspense, and the facts Pallotta presents are solidly researched. A charming fish tale about the one—the boy—that got away. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-88106-075-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
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In a family memoir of the most affecting kind, readers are invited to a long-ago time in the Ozark Mountains and the story of a musician who owned “the clothes on his back and a fine old lionhead fiddle.” Fiddlin’ Sam is the inheritor of the peripatetic, minstrel’s life of his father, who taught Sam his art, saying, “This ain’t a gift, Son. It’s a loan. You gotta pass the music along.” Sam accepts the food that appreciative people give him, but politely refuses their offer of a bed. When a rattler bites him, Sam fears he has failed his calling; the music will die with him. In the feverish time that follows, someone takes care of him, a young man whom Sam hopes will take up the gift and carry it along—but the boy has other plans. In the years that follow, Sam meets another young man on the road who reminds him of the first one, and, indeed, is his son. Their path together lasts long enough for Sam to pass along his gift and its joys and burdens before he dies. An endpiece dedication allows readers to glimpse aspects of the story that are based in truth. A rhythmic refrain underscores the emotions of the story, and even acts as the vehicle of the ascension of Sam’s soul at death. Gerig’s watercolors deliver the scenic beauty of the region and carry their own version of a familial tribute. (Picture book. 4-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 10, 1999
ISBN: 0-87358-742-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Rising Moon
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS
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