Waiting for the Evening Star - Softcover

Kindergarten-Grade 3-A series of first-person vignettes revolving around the seasons, introducing two brothers on a Vermont farm in the early part of this century. It's the commonplace events that young Berty holds in his heart-his mother pouring "hot new syrup, clear as a cat's eye, over plates of fresh snow," or sitting with his older brother watching trains go past. These activities are all shadowed by the fact that Luke wants to explore the world. The ending shows him leaving on a train, headed for France and the war. These nostalgic recollections are rendered in prose filled with pictorial images, but they are filtered by an adult eye. The repeated references to time as a concrete object- first a wheel, then an arrow-is also an adult concept. Jeffers's illustrations (watercolor, ink, and dyes) are appropriately atmospheric. They are filled with the flora and fauna of Vermont, solid farm people, and dramatic trains slicing through the countryside. A lovely book for adults to read to children before sharing memories of their own childhood.
Karen K. Radtke, Milwaukee Public Library
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

With a well-honed narrative and expansive, beautifully detailed illustrations in Jeffers's signature crosshatch and watercolor, an evocation of Vermont country life pre-WW I. Berty watches the men cut ice to ship to Boston; shares syrup on snow; helps Grandmother start seeds indoors in early spring (transplanted carrots and peas in a book listing two farm museums as resources stretches credibility, but never mind); and listens to older brother Luke's dreams of the larger world as trains steam by. It all ends with Luke's departure, in 1917, for the Navy, and Berty's new realization of inexorable change through the passage of time--and with a wish, on a star, for his brother. There's some poetic license here--hunting dandelions in the woods, red autumn foliage in early September--but, overall, the details, from milk can to parlor stove, are authentic and meticulously rendered, while the era's comfortable, provincial security is nicely conveyed. (Picture book. 5-8) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.