For children, for adults, for smiling over silently, for reading aloud, for reciting on a program, even—an eminently likeable collection, concrete, supple, allusive but not abstruse. Like "School Buses" in summer, "hunting on the roads of August. . . smirking with their mirrors in the sun—/ But summer isn't done! Not yet!" Or the "Friendly Cinnamon Bun" that, once eaten, leaves "his friendliness inside." Or the haunting "Empty House" where shadows move to "the silent striking of the no-cloak in the hall." Or the title poem, of the pedaling man on the roof who could "only take just so much north wind, even if he's iron." Or. . . or. . . The rhythms are varied and natural; rhyme is or isn't but isn't obtrusive. Another surprise from the author of The Mouse and His Child.
Pub Date: April 29, 1968
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1968
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Young Raina is 9 when she throws up for the first time that she remembers, due to a stomach bug. Even a year later, when she is in fifth grade, she fears getting sick.
Raina begins having regular stomachaches that keep her home from school. She worries about sharing food with her friends and eating certain kinds of foods, afraid of getting sick or food poisoning. Raina’s mother enrolls her in therapy. At first Raina isn’t sure about seeing a therapist, but over time she develops healthy coping mechanisms to deal with her stress and anxiety. Her therapist helps her learn to ground herself and relax, and in turn she teaches her classmates for a school project. Amping up the green, wavy lines to evoke Raina’s nausea, Telgemeier brilliantly produces extremely accurate visual representations of stress and anxiety. Thought bubbles surround Raina in some panels, crowding her with anxious “what if”s, while in others her negative self-talk appears to be literally crushing her. Even as she copes with anxiety disorder and what is eventually diagnosed as mild irritable bowel syndrome, she experiences the typical stresses of school life, going from cheer to panic in the blink of an eye. Raina is white, and her classmates are diverse; one best friend is Korean American.
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many. (Graphic memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-85251-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS
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The author of Cod (1997) successfully provides readers with a frightening look at the looming destruction of the oceans. Brief sections in graphic-novel format follow a young girl, Ailat, and her father over a couple of decades as the condition of the ocean grows increasingly dire, eventually an orange, slimy mess mostly occupied by jellyfish and leatherback turtles. At the end, Ailat’s young daughter doesn’t even know what the word fish means. This is juxtaposed against nonfiction chapters with topics including types of fishing equipment and the damage each causes, a history of the destruction of the cod and its consequences, the international politics of the fishing industry and the effects of pollution and global warming. The final chapter lists of some actions readers could take to attempt to reverse the damage: not eating certain types of fish, joining environmental groups, writing to government officials, picketing seafood stores that sell endangered fish, etc. Whenever an important point is to be made, font size increases dramatically, sometimes so that a single sentence fills a page—attention-getting but distractingly so. While it abounds with information, sadly, no sources are cited, undermining reliability. Additionally, there are no index and no recommended bibliography for further research, diminishing this effort’s value as a resource. Depressing and scary yet grimly entertaining. (Nonfiction/graphic-novel hybrid. 10 & up)
Pub Date: April 18, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7611-5607-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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