Deft storytelling combines with workmanlike pictures, making this picture book a useful, if not crucial, selection. Huck describes the many sources of this folktale, drawing particularly from Perrault's ``The Fairies.'' In this version, a widow and her natural daughter, Francine, make life miserable for the kind and charitable RenÇe, the woman's stepdaughter. RenÇe's disposition elicits the magical gift of having flowers and jewels cascade from her mouth as she speaks. When the horrid Francine tries for the same, she ends up displaying the results preceded by the quite wonderful line, ``You are not going to like it, Mother,'' as snakes and toads pour from her rude mouth. The language and rhythms are lovely to read aloud; Huck (as she explains in an author's note) attempts to make RenÇe resourceful instead of a stereotypically helpless female, although RenÇe's career goals are confined to a dream, and her destiny is a wedding. The drawings are uneven; the compositions are ordinary; and the people loom largely and then shrink out of proportion. The features of the faces shift from scene to scene, although the glorious stylized vegetation is sure to elicit admiration. (Picture book/folklore. 5+)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-688-13680-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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