Saturday, August 6, 2011

Junonia by Kevin Henkes

Junonia by Kevin Henkes
Greenwillow Books
2011
176p.

The week of her tenth birthday, Alice and her parents go to Sanibel Island, Florida, just as they do every year, but this time some of the people who are always there are missing and some new people have come, which unsettles Alice, who wants things to be exactly the same as they alway are.

4 comments:

  1. This book is beautiful, both in how it is written and the layout (they use blue ink for the pretty beach illustrations!). However it is a bit of a snoozer, primarily focusing on every emotion Alice Rice feels and even the smallest physical movements she makes. This is a book to be savored, not to be read for action.

    ReplyDelete
  2. After reading Olive's Ocean a couple years ago (and not really caring for it), I was not very excited about this book. However, I did enjoy it more than I thought I would. It is lovely and well written; however, I agree that it is slow at times and certainly not action-filled.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rich in atmosphere, with absolutely beautiful descriptive passages -- as I read it aloud with my 12-year-old son, we would both interrupt the story to savor the language. Ultimately ephemeral, though -- it didn't leave an impact. The characters other than Alice seemed unreal, out of focus, though perhaps this was the author's intent, since the story was meant to convey the perspective of a ten-year-old.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Beautifully written, Henkes does a great job of keeping Alice's perspective true to the mindset of a 10-year-old. I like that the secondary characters were one dimensional. He kept enough detail to match what would be noticed by a little girl. I agree that the book itself was very attractive and keep with the island feel, with the pastel cover and blue illustrations. It's slow pace and language works well for reading aloud or for new chapter book readers. I like it, but not sure it's Newbery material.

    ReplyDelete