There’s an audacious quality to Caldecott Honor–winning Provensen’s (A Visit to William Blake’s Inn, 1981) work, never more so than here, where she yokes together two Chinese stories, and uses Chinese painting as the inspiration for her oil on vellum images. There’s luminosity in both the glow of the art, and in the purity of the telling. In the first tale, Little Chu’s desperately poor village is beset by bandits, so he seeks to learn swordsmanship from the great Master Li. Master Li’s stewpot, water jug, and log all have lessons for Little Chu, and he learns them painfully. In the end, though, he masters the sword so well that he needs it only to chop cabbage, and brings prosperity to his village by wielding the famous sword to prepare meals. The Magic Doorway teaches likewise. The emperor is so taken with the magnificent painting Mu Chi is making on the palace wall that he wishes to have the artist put to death when he finishes, so no one else will have so great a work. But Mu Chi, who could make deer leap in his painted canyons and rabbits nibble the grass, paints a blue door, and then escapes through it: “I have some more paintings to make, and I cannot make them without a head,” he tells the emperor. The elegant precision of both prose and painting will speak to young readers, bringing home complicated lessons about freedom, choice, and preparedness. (Folktale. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83232-X
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0792-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
McDonald’s irrepressible third-grader (Judy Moody Gets Famous, 2001, etc.) takes a few false steps before hitting full stride. This time, not only has her genius little brother Stink submitted a competing entry in the Crazy Strips Band-Aid design contest, but in the wake of her science teacher’s heads-up about rainforest destruction and endangered animals, she sees every member of her family using rainforest products. It’s all more than enough to put her in a Mood, which gets her in trouble at home for letting Stink’s pet toad, Toady, go free, and at school for surreptitiously collecting all the pencils (made from rainforest cedar) in class. And to top it off, Stink’s Crazy Strips entry wins a prize, while she gets . . . a certificate. Chronicled amusingly in Reynolds’s frequent ink-and-tea drawings, Judy goes from pillar to post—but she justifies the pencil caper convincingly enough to spark a bottle drive that nets her and her classmates not only a hundred seedling trees for Costa Rica, but the coveted school Giraffe Award (given to those who stick their necks out), along with T-shirts and ice cream coupons. Judy’s growing corps of fans will crow “Rare!” right along with her. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7636-1446-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2002
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