Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

This installment in the series set at 26 Fairmount Avenue finds Tomie enjoying a new sled, going to see <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Fantasia, celebrating a traditional Italian Easter and struggling to understand what is happening in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Ages 7-up<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">. (May)

ALA Booklist (Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2003)

The latest installment in dePaola's ongoing, still-unique autobiography takes readers through 1941, dePaola's seventh year, when world events elbowed their way into his world for good. Frequently mixing in neatly lettered pages from his treasured diary, dePaola chronicles exhilarating rides on sleds and amusement-park attractions, Saturday morning trips to the movie house, Sunday morning routines, a dance recital, trials and tribulations in second grade, and more--until December seventh brings all the grown-ups together around the radio, and his mother utters the title's prophetic words: "Things will never be the same." Livening nearly every page with vignettes or larger drawings, the author again draws children into a vanished, but somehow universal, world with his youthful narration, convincingly childlike sensibility, and irrepressible spirit.

School Library Journal

Gr 2-4-The fifth installment in the series is delightful. The story starts in January, 1941. Each chapter begins with a diary entry while the first-person text fleshes out the boy's memorable experiences such as a special dance recital, sledding on his Junior Flexible Flyer, and seeing Walt Disney's Fantasia for the first time. DePaola's distinctive black-and-white illustrations add humor and child appeal. The book's title comes from the last chapter in which the author remembers the impact on his family of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Children who remember 9/11 will identify with his feeling that "things will never be the same." A welcome addition to any easy chapter-book collection.-Elaine Lesh Morgan, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Another in the utterly engaging series in which dePaola recounts his own childhood; this one ends on a somewhat darker note. Tomie (whose teachers still insist on calling him Tommy) seems to recall, in pitch-perfect language and tone, just what it was like to be the kid he was. He begins his story in January 1941 with an entry in his new diary and the joys of riding his new Junior Flexible Flyer down a steep hill in his Connecticut town. He tells one of his mother's sledding stories, too; recounts Easter at Nana Fall-River's (and the horrors of car sickness); and being a pirate in the dance recital. When he starts second grade, he is thrilled to have a real art teacher, who understands that real artists don't copy, and they need to use all the colors in the box. Tomie ends on a sober note, however, on Sunday, December 7, 1941, when the adults hear on the news that Japan has attacked Pearl Harbor, and that war has come. His wonderful black-and-white drawings illuminate the text, and there are pages from his diary (with illustrations of their own) included. This child cherished his life—even the scary parts, like the presence of polio or the giant Ferris wheel—and young readers will find enormous resonance with their own experiences across the decades of time. (Chapter book. 7-10)

Horn Book (Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2003)

In its fifth volume now, dePaola's autobiographical early-independent-reader series takes the budding artist into his seventh year. Although less well focused than its predecessors, this latest re-creates the joys of sledding, the dangers of polio, and the glories of the Ferris wheel. Faux entries from Tomie's diary head each chapter and pepper the text; the last entry, dated December 7, 1941, gives the book its title.