  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 03/15/2012 As he did before in Garmann’s Summer (2008) and Garmann’s Street (2010), Hole dives beneath the surface to explore a facet of childhood from the inside out. This time it is the nature of secrets, with their tingle and their burden. Identical ginger sprites Hannah and Johanna are back, though no longer inseparable. Garmann and Johanna stake out a private place, an abandoned space capsule deep in a dense forest, where they play astronaut, spell puzzles on one another’s backs, and experience a first kiss. Safe in their seclusion, Garmann and Johanna let down their guards to ponder the universe, underwater to outer space, examining water skaters on the pond’s surface and looking for God in the stars. But can they keep their secret? Kaleidoscopic photo-collages, dense with detail, reflect the story’s metaphysical musings and inspire careful, imaginative attention. Curious children will see themselves in Garmann’s ordinary circumstances, and in them find an abstract understanding of the power of secrets. - Copyright 2012 Booklist. School Library Journal - 04/01/2012 Gr 2–4—Hole shares his thoughtful and poetic insights into the mind of a child in this third book about a sensitive, towheaded boy. Here he is befriended by kind Johanna, who takes him into the woods to see what appears to be a space capsule. Keeping the discovery a secret from her bullying twin sister, Hannah, they spend hours playing in and around the capsule. Hole's collage illustrations experiment with proportion and dimension and are at once weird and wonderful, real and surreal. The themes of loyalty, imaginative play, and individuality are universal. Although the characters are young, the plainspoken narrative and novel artwork will appeal to older children. For larger collections or those that circulate the earlier titles.—Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC - Copyright 2012 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
 |