Kirkus Reviews

Two long-time Alaska residents take the name of a local and beloved flower and give it to an outsized heroine in this awkwardly scanned, rhymed tall tale. "Not an inch of her was tame" goes the story of Sitka Rose, with her long flame-colored braids woven with wildflowers. Like most heroes, Sitka Rose could do fabulous things even as an infant, when she'd climb a spruce to see the sky before she could crawl. The image shows a grubby girl in a nest with fledgling eagles. She lassoed a whale to reach the Nome gold rush, left a trench filled by the Yukon River in her search for nuggets, and won a sled race by harnessing a grizzly bear and ten wolverines. The watercolors have both a slightly mystical bent and a gorgeous sunrise-over-the-mountains palette: the animals have almost-human expressions and Sitka Rose wears a wonderful pink plaid shirt, green breeches, hiking boots—and then there's that hair. Pair with Jerdine Nolen's Thunder Rose (2003) for tall-tale telling, female style. (map) (Picture book/tall tale. 5-8)

School Library Journal (Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 CDT 2005)

K-Gr 2 A pseudo-tall tale written in verse, Sitka Rose will hold little appeal for readers in the lower 48 and not much more for those in Alaska. Gill's jumble of history (the gold rush) and geography (the formation of the Yukon River and Denali) may be intended to evoke the flavor of stories about Paul Bunyan, but Rose is an unconvincing character. Exaggeration is naturally a hallmark of fabulous stories, but there should be some internal logic to the preposterous claims. Cartwright's watercolor illustrations faithfully represent the action in the text, which doesn't add to the book's success. Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY

Horn Book (Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2005)

Tomecek includes a great deal of basic information about the moon in straightforward explanations understandable to young children. He starts with observations and myths, then moves to scientific explanations for craters, moon surface conditions, and earth-moon-sun spatial relationships. The colorful cartoonlike illustrations, featuring a friendly cat and firefly, are appealing but do little to aid in scientific understanding.