Jack Henry is excited that his kinfolk are coming to celebrate the harvest, but he’s seen a coach-whip snake in the barn, where he and his cousin will be spending the night to make room for the company. He’s heard that a whip snake can beat a person with its tail, but he doesn’t want anyone to think he’s a scaredy-cat and he makes no mention of his fear. Throughout the evening, the snake is on his mind, causing him such uneasiness he eats little of the scrumptious dinner and doesn’t join the dancing festivities afterward. In the middle of the night, a clap of thunder and the sight of his cousin walking off the edge of the hayloft awaken Jack Henry. He scrambles for a blanket from the mule’s stall and manages to wake his cousin, then runs for help. When Grandpa Buddy comes to check, Jack Henry blurts out his fear of the snake. “You ever hear of anyone beaten to death by a snake?” asks Grandpa Buddy and tells him it’s just a tale. As he takes the blanket back to the stall, Jack Henry sees the snake and starts to run, but decides to take a stand and threatens the snake with a hoe. With that, the snake turns tail, disappears through a hole, and Jack Henry stops up the hole with a croaker sack. Having confronted his fear, he shouts, “Dance y’all!” just like his Grandpa Buddy did earlier in the evening, dancing a little jig in the barn. Watercolor illustration in shades of gold and blue is a consistent palette throughout the story, making the night scenes as bright as the day. The snake is a golden color and, although he has a threatening stance in one of the pictures, the color does not further enhance the fear. Jack Henry and his cousin appear to be eight-year-olds and the story is vaguely set in a past of long skirts and horse-drawn carriages. The African-American family and farm scenes are realistic and handsome although many of the pictures seem static. A quiet story useful for children dealing with fear. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7614-5065-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your dreads! Isadora once again plies her hand using colorful, textured collages to depict her fourth fairy tale relocated to Africa. The narrative follows the basic story line: Taken by an evil sorceress at birth, Rapunzel is imprisoned in a tower; Rapunzel and the prince “get married” in the tower and she gets pregnant. The sorceress cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and tricks the prince, who throws himself from the tower and is blinded by thorns. The terse ending states: “The prince led Rapunzel and their twins to his kingdom, where they were received with great joy and lived happily every after.” Facial features, clothing, dreadlocks, vultures and the prince riding a zebra convey a generic African setting, but at times, the mixture of patterns and textures obfuscates the scenes. The textile and grain characteristic of the hewn art lacks the elegant romance of Zelinksy’s Caldecott version. Not a first purchase, but useful in comparing renditions to incorporate a multicultural aspect. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-24772-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A repressive teacher almost ruins second grade for a prodigy in this amusing, if overwritten, tale. Having shown a fascination with great buildings since constructing a model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa from used diapers at age two, Iggy sinks into boredom after Miss Greer announces, throwing an armload of histories and craft projects into the trash, that architecture will be a taboo subject in her class. Happily, she changes her views when the collapse of a footbridge leaves the picnicking class stranded on an island, whereupon Iggy enlists his mates to build a suspension bridge from string, rulers and fruit roll-ups. Familiar buildings and other structures, made with unusual materials or, on the closing pages, drawn on graph paper, decorate Roberts’s faintly retro cartoon illustrations. They add an audience-broadening element of sophistication—as would Beaty’s decision to cast the text into verse, if it did not result in such lines as “After twelve long days / that passed in a haze / of reading, writing and arithmetic, / Miss Greer took the class / to Blue River Pass / for a hike and an old-fashioned picnic.” Another John Lithgow she is not, nor is Iggy another Remarkable Farkle McBride (2000), but it’s always salutary to see young talent vindicated. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8109-1106-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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