A chilling and thought-provoking book about human, political, and economic aspects of the refugee crisis in a medium that...
An art book by Bologna Ragazzi Award–winner Greder (The Island, 2008, etc.) about the European migrant crisis.
Dark-toned, charcoal-dominant illustrations on wordless pages portray two men, one with a light complexion and the other one darker, eating fish. The white man sells the other rifles, which are delivered across the sea and carried by soldiers. A white man resembling the one who sold the weapons stands right behind the soldiers’ commanders, suggesting that he’s commanding too. Then there is war, death, and displacement. The people escaping war walk, then appear crammed on a truck. They talk to smugglers and get on a boat that founders, hopelessly overloaded. The last illustration, of the sinking boat, hearkens back to a man appearing at the beginning of the book, whose drowned body sinks to the bottom of the sea and is eaten by fish—the same fish served to the two men closing the arms deal. In an afterword, Italian journalist Alessandro Leogrande dubs the illustrator’s narrative a human “food chain,” questioning “the relationship between Europe and the dictatorships from which people are fleeing en masse” and connecting Europe’s “inability to understand this modern-day exodus” to a “denial of the humanity of those who travel by sea” and the political reasons behind the journey.
A chilling and thought-provoking book about human, political, and economic aspects of the refugee crisis in a medium that makes it accessible to a wide array of audiences. (Informational picture book. 8-adult)Pub Date: June 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-76063-095-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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