Small Beauties

September 1, 2006
Gr 2-5 -Darcy Heart O -Hara, the only daughter in a large Irish family, lives in a small cottage in Pobble O -Keefe in the 1840s. Born with a gift of seeing small beauties, she finds rocks, petals, and feathers and slips them into the hem of her ragged dress. The family reluctantly emigrates to America, and it is Darcy -s small beauties that remind them of their old home and give them strength to move on in their new one. Woodruff subtly captures the lilt of Irish dialect, inviting reading the text aloud. Her smooth and descriptive prose takes readers along on the O -Haras - journey, capturing joyful times when -her father danced a jig in the firelight - and Granddad spun tales -in the glow of the peat fire -&. - Rex -s mixed-media earth-tone illustrations are extraordinarily evocative, offering touching scenes with expressive faces and deep emotion. Rich in detail of the Irish landscape, the art gives a deeper understanding of this powerful story. Together, text and illustrations create a -small beauty - that gives a human face to immigration." -Lee Bock, Glenbrook Elementary School, Pulaski, WI"

Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2006
K-Gr. 3. From the cover portrait of a sweet-faced child holding a rosary bead to the scene of the girl's tearful parting with her grandmother, this wrenching picture book pulls out all the stops of the emigration story. Life is hard for Darcy's loving family in their Irish village in 1845, but Darcy always finds time to stop and see the small beauties around her. When the potato famine drives the family to America, she takes some of those beautiful things with her, which help the family remember "not just the hurt and hunger but also all the beauty left behind." Woodruff's simple, poetic storytelling combines with Rex's illustrations in charcoal, graphite pencils, and oil to present the drama through Darcy's eyes, including the rubble of the family home after eviction, the journey across the ocean and, always close-up, the little but important things: a pebble, a flower, a hearthstone chip. Pair this with Barbara Shook Hazen's " Katie's Wish" (2002) and Valerie Worth's classic " Small Poems" (1972).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)