Skip to main content

FABULOUS FINISH: There Is a Tribe of Kids



There Is a Tribe of Kids 
By Lane Smith
Roaring Brook Press, 2016.

A young boy is in the midst of a tribe of kids (as in young goats). But the goats then climb up the mountain where the young boy cannot follow. The boy then goes in search of other groups (of animals or objects) to spend time with: a colony of penguins, a formation of rocks, and an army of caterpillars. But eventually the boy is left all alone once more. Until in this Fabulous Finish there is one last grouping of creatures that he can join at the end.

 This book is great on so many levels. First of all kiddos (and grownups) can learn the names of so many different groupings. Also, there are few words. Each page lists just a few words such as “There was a sprinkle of lightning bugs”; however, kids can see that there is so much of the story that is unsaid and shown in the illustrations. This is a clever book for early literacy practice where kids can tell more of the story than what is actually written—which in turn will make the ending all the more powerful. Lane Smith once again has created a book that not only touches my heart and imagination, but is one that I will want to come back to again and again. Well done.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The New Girl

The New Girl By Cassandra Calin New York: Graphix, 2024. Comic. 261 pages. 12-year-old Lia and her family have just moved from Romania to Montreal, and she's doing her best to keep up with the changes. But, she's homesick. She misses the rest of her family, her friends, and her favorite Romanian treats. She doesn't speak French and her English is shaky, which makes it hard to make friends, even in her international immersion class. And she's dealing with super painful menstrual cramps every month. But before long, Lia starts to hit her stride. She befriends the other bilingual girls in her class, she gets a spot as the artist for her school's magazine, and even has a new crush -- Julien. Though she may be the new girl, Lia is starting to fit in. This slice of life graphic novel is an adorable choice for middle grade readers and young teens. Lia is a likable protagonist and readers will have little difficulty relating to her adjustment to school. The text speaks to a...

Review: Cincinnati Lee, Curse Breaker

  Cincinnati Lee, Curse Breaker By Heidi Heilig New York: Greenwillow Books, 2025. Fiction. 291 pages. Thanks to Cincinnati Lee's no good, dirty rotten, artifact stealing great great great grandfather, Cincinnati's family is now cursed and Cincinnati feels like it's up to her to break the curse. Which involves trying to steal the artifacts back from museums that her grandfather robbed from graves and archeological sites around the world and return them to their countries of origin. But when Cincinnati's first artifact stealing mission goes awry, she decides it might be more effective to steal an all-powerful artifact herself that she can use to break the curse - The Spear of Destiny. Unfortunately her race for the spear will pit her against art smugglers and thieves intent on finding the ancient artifact themselves. If you are looking for an Indiana Jones read-alike, this is the perfect for you! Heavy on the adventure with similar levels of mysticism to those seen in th...

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...