Review by Booklist Review
What was it like before air-conditioning? Spinelli, most ably aided by Lewin, brings kids back to those sweaty days. It's a sweltering Sunday in Lumberville, so hot that the pastor shortens his sermon. On Monday, the movie theater closes. Tuesday, the police officer takes a bubble bath. Wednesday, hotter still. Lottie Mims wears her bathing suit to clean house. By Saturday, everyone is roasting. When it's time to go to sleep, rooftops and fire escapes aren't good enough. Families take their pillows and blankets to the riverbank. Some sleep, some toss and turn, but everyone has the same dream: rain, sweet rain, falling on the Lumbervilleans and making water spots on this book's pages. The plot is more a premise than an actual story, but Lewin wrings every bit of humor from the goings-on. Her watercolor-and-ink pictures spot the white-hot pages in reds and yellows, sometimes softened by purples and blues. The fun here comes not only from marveling at the ingenuity residents use to keep cool but also from the simple act of looking back. A time before air-conditioning? Really. --Ilene Cooper Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
From the opening lines ("Sun sizzled. Hair frizzled"), Spinelli (Summerhouse Time) jauntily establishes the theme for this tale of one sweltering week in the town of Lumberville, long before the advent of air conditioners. Beginning on a blistering Monday, the day-by-day chronicle reveals how residents cope. Abigail Blue and her brother Ralphie open a lemonade stand, but two days later "forgot about the lemonade and just sold ice." Lottie Mims takes four cold showers one day and on the next "wore her bathing suit to clean house." Caldecott Honor artist Lewin's (Click, Clack, Moo) amusing assemblage of brush, ink and watercolor images portray the resourceful ways the townsfolk try to beat the heat. On Saturday night, "everyone-whether in a bed or on a rooftop or on a fire escape or in a tent or near the river-everyone... had the exact same dream." A spread depicting that dream rounds up playful portraits of the smiling citizens frolicking in the rain. A power outage may be the closest modern readers come to a similar experience, but they (and nostalgic parents) should nonetheless appreciate this good-natured tribute to summer at its hottest. Ages 3-7. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-Before stores, businesses, and homes had air conditioners, the residents of Lumberville had to get creative during a heat wave. The "sun sizzled. Hair frizzled" as sweltering day after day began. Townspeople, kids, and dogs try a variety of ways to cool down and finally all camp out on the riverbank dreaming of a break in the weather. Stark white pages provide the perfect backdrop for fresh, vivid watercolor cartoons, with the final page displaying splashes of refreshing blue raindrops. While the story is simple and straightforward, the sun-drenched illustrations provide a spirited and evocative look back in time.-Judy Chichinski, Skyline Elementary School, Tacoma, WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Primary) It's long before the days of air conditioning, and a handful of Lumberville residents -- Pastor Denkins; Abigail Blue and her little brother, Ralphie; and others -- must find ways to beat the heat during one punishing summer week. Take Lottie Mims: on Wednesday, she ""wore her bathing suit to clean house""; on Thursday, she ""took a nap with cold tea bags on her eyes."" The increasingly desperate cast members behave in character-defying ways (""Officer McGinnis soaked all afternoon in a bubble bath"") that are both surprising and amusing. Plotless though it is, Heat Wave gathers momentum as the temperature rises, and it climaxes with an impromptu late-night community get-together by the river. Not long after the mayor hands out ""popsicles and political flyers,"" everyone falls asleep somewhere or another but dreams the same glorious dream: it rains. Lewin, using ink and watercolors dominated by blues, purples, and oranges, owns the blisteringly muggy setting, but she outdoes herself in the final spread, in which what look like actual water droplets splatter her illustrations of dancing Lumbervillians. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
"Sun sizzled. Hair frizzled." As the Lumberville heat wave descends, day by day its population does its best to adapt, in this sweet evocation of the time before air conditioning. The movie theater closes, Lottie Mims vacuums in her bathing suit, "[the] Pettibone sisters put their perfume and makeup in the icebox." On the hottest night yet, the community heads to the riverbank with pillows and blankets to seek some relief. Spinelli's simple, declarative text touches on each character in turn, describing how they cope--children, adults and animals, one by one. Lewin's signature illustrations form a series of vignettes against white space, extracting gentle humor from each situation. Dusty yellows and browns dominate her washed-out palette, punctuated by the occasional soothing blue of relative cool. Each quickly drawn figure demonstrates mastery of body language, limp limbs and frazzled hair expressing all. The healing rain comes in a town-wide dream, as joyous splashes of blue ink bathe the citizens of Lumberville in a welcome moisture readers will feel as fully as the characters. As lovely an evocation of one community as one could hope to see. (Picture book. 3-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
