From the Publisher
“In the cut-paper collage illustrations, dramatic composition as well as varied hues and textures create visual interest even in scenes with no living characters…an intriguing classroom read-aloud choice for many voices.” — Booklist
Children's Literature
- Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz
A sleepy "baby" volcano is the first narrator of this tale of an eruption, told in free, carefully crafted, evocative verse. It warns us to watch out for a nasty tantrum when it wakes up. Ferns enjoy the cool morning when the volcano sleeps. A lava flow cricket anticipates trouble. Signs on a small black road warn of danger. The sun wishes the moon a good morning. All these narrators exchange information as the day goes on and we build toward the climax. The volcano greets the returning moon with a gift of red lava: "Moon, watch this!" Jenkins's cut and torn papers are chosen and manipulated with imaginative insight to create double-page scenes filled with strong emotional images. Esthetically designed, they produce naturalistic pictures of the landscapes and organic life that survive on the bursting mountain. The visuals share the poetic sensitivity of the text, resulting in a book that defuses the potential horror of this destructive natural force. The author has added personal as well as factual information. Reviewer: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz
School Library Journal
Gr 2–4—Jenkins's cut-paper collages erupt with billowing gray clouds and rivers of lava, forming a frame to surround Peters's chirpy poems recording a day in the life of a busy young volcano. A small road sign warns, "don't expect to have a nice day," while a lava flow cricket celebrates being at a "HotLavaBBQ" and a fern "Eeeeee-yikes!" at a near miss from a lava bomb. This cheerful compilation is accompanied by two pages of factual information culled from the author's visit to the Big Island of Hawai'i. Sadly missing is a general description of just what a volcano is, and how it works. Still and all, this is a way to connect geology and poetry in an interdisciplinary curriculum.—Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY
Publishers Weekly
Personified features of a Hawaiian landscape speak in verse during a day in the life of a waking volcano, rendered in Jenkins’s atmospheric trademark cut-paper collages. The poems shift between the volcano, a pair of crickets, ferns, the sun, and a winding mountain road, and Peters lends sly dimensions to each voice: the volcano is a literal firecracker (“I’m the baby.... but when I wake up, watch out!”), and the crickets’ chirps are transmuted into texts (“Hey, bro, I M way back in the cave. I was ZZZZZZ hard, but that nasty smll woke me up”). A humorous, imaginative, and artful concept. Ages 4–up. (Mar.)
Kirkus Reviews
Early one morning, a young volcano wakes up, too sleepy to explode . . . just yet. But everyone knows the time is coming. The wild ferns unfurl and shake loose. The lava crickets can't wait for their next meal. And the black road-well, he knows to proceed with caution. Sixteen poems told in alternating viewpoints show a day in the life of this tiny, sizzling spitfire. Like a toddler in a temper tantrum when it finally blows ("Look at me! / I can fling cinders / and ash into the sky. I can / huff and chuff and pour rivers of / lava down my side"), everything around it changes. From clever acrostics to bantering text messages, Peters playfully mixes poetry forms. Add Jenkins's cottony clouds and molten lava in his signature collage style, and the package makes for one hot topic. It's a great and apt companion to the poet's Earthshakes: Poems from the Ground Up, illustrated by Cathie Felstead (2003). Informative endnotes give scientific tidbits, along with Hawaiian pronunciation guides. (further reading) (Poetry/informational picture book. 4-8)
