The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Cutler, Jane

Guttersnipe

32 pp. | Farrar | May, 2009 | Trade ISBN 978-0-374-32813-9 $16.95

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully. To help his Jewish immigrant family, Ben gets a job delivering hat linings. One day he wrecks his bike and drops hundreds of the silk circles. For Ben, the beautiful sight of the colored linings floating in the wind engenders not despair but a hopeful vision of his future. Detailed watercolors reflect Ben's exhilaration and evoke the early-twentieth-century setting of this unusual story based on real events.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert