Pure joie de vivre but a bit less joie de vérité.
Will the young engineer Eiffel save his pretty wife from slipping into oblivion?
“Eiffel is a happy engineer / young, successful, and in love. / The prettiest girl in Paris is his wife. / Her name is Cathy, and she has a thirst for life.” Early in the simple tale, Cathy becomes mysteriously ill, and Eiffel works feverishly to create her desire: “Cathy tries to laugh and tells Eiffel with a wink / ‘You could build us a railway / that takes us up to the clouds in a blink.’ ” The internal rhymes and graceful, syncopated rhythm are the proper match for exuberant, quirky line drawings, accented sparingly with the color pink. The people in the book—including the beloved couple—are depicted with large, oval heads atop tiny, slender bodies that sport carefully detailed clothing. The aerial views of Paris include hundreds of tiny rooftops and windows, with comical birds in the sky and complementary fish in the Seine. Appropriate for an engineer’s story, art and layout make wonderful use of grids as well as numerous, varying angles and viewpoints, including a double-page spread of the eponymous tower, which requires a 90-degree rotation to view properly. The artwork and text combine to create a delightful fairy tale that, alas, has little basis in reality: Eiffel’s 15-year marriage ended when his Marguerite died of pneumonia, 10 years before completion of the Eiffel Tower. It’s a pity there is no note that helps readers clarify this conflict.
Pure joie de vivre but a bit less joie de vérité. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-3-89955-755-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little Gestalten
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
A nice but not requisite purchase.
A retelling of the classic fairy tale in board-book format and with a Mexican setting.
Though simplified for a younger audience, the text still relates the well-known tale: mean-spirited stepmother, spoiled stepsisters, overworked Cinderella, fairy godmother, glass slipper, charming prince, and, of course, happily-ever-after. What gives this book its flavor is the artwork. Within its Mexican setting, the characters are olive-skinned and dark-haired. Cultural references abound, as when a messenger comes carrying a banner announcing a “FIESTA” in beautiful papel picado. Cinderella is the picture of beauty, with her hair up in ribbons and flowers and her typically Mexican many-layered white dress. The companion volume, Snow White, set in Japan and illustrated by Misa Saburi, follows the same format. The simplified text tells the story of the beautiful princess sent to the forest by her wicked stepmother to be “done away with,” the dwarves that take her in, and, eventually, the happily-ever-after ending. Here too, what gives the book its flavor is the artwork. The characters wear traditional clothing, and the dwarves’ house has the requisite shoji screens, tatami mats and cherry blossoms in the garden. The puzzling question is, why the board-book presentation? Though the text is simplified, it’s still beyond the board-book audience, and the illustrations deserve full-size books.
A nice but not requisite purchase. (Board book/fairy tale. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7915-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Vital messages of self-love for darker-skinned children.
On hot summer nights, Amani’s parents permit her to go outside and play in the apartment courtyard, where the breeze is cool and her friends are waiting.
The children jump rope to the sounds of music as it floats through a neighbor’s window, gaze at stars in the night sky, and play hide-and-seek in the moonlight. It is in the moonlight that Amani and her friends are themselves found by the moon, and it illumines the many shades of their skin, which vary from light tan to deep brown. In a world where darkness often evokes ideas of evil or fear, this book is a celebration of things that are dark and beautiful—like a child’s dark skin and the night in which she plays. The lines “Show everyone else how to embrace the night like you. Teach them how to be a night-owning girl like you” are as much an appeal for her to love and appreciate her dark skin as they are the exhortation for Amani to enjoy the night. There is a sense of security that flows throughout this book. The courtyard is safe and homelike. The moon, like an additional parent, seems to be watching the children from the sky. The charming full-bleed illustrations, done in washes of mostly deep blues and greens, make this a wonderful bedtime story.
Vital messages of self-love for darker-skinned children. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: July 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55271-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
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