Definitely not your mother’s etiquette book. Two friends, rendered almost always simply as heads, explore the niceties of table manners: Chester, a swoop of blue and green with red smiling mouth and four or five upswept hairs, and Dudunya, a round, bald fellow with big ears and genial smile. Each is rendered in the inimitable style of his creator/alter-ego, Raschka (Little Tree, p. 1210, etc.) and Radunsky (My Dolly, p. 497, etc.), respectively. The friends bop across bright collage backgrounds, presenting the basic rules of polite eating. “But Chester, why a fork and a knife?” asks the clueless Dudunya. Chester patiently explains, “Because it makes you look grown-up, and because a knife makes big things small enough to fit in your mouth.” Accompanying this sage advice is a picture of Dudunya armed with knife and fork and about to carve into a baked potato sectioned like a butcher’s chart. Unfortunately, the design is overdone, with multimedia illustrations and typefaces of varying degrees of urgency vying for the reader’s attention, with frequently dizzying results. Also, this collaboration between two of children’s books’ more exciting artists smacks not a little of self-indulgence, with much of the wit seemingly aimed over the heads of its putative audience: how many American children, for instance, will relate to the concept of elevenses? Still, there is definite kid appeal in the broad humor that allows Chester to illustrate the consequences of neglecting to chew and to deliver the tautological instruction that “napkins are definitely not . . . everything that is not a napkin.” Maybe, just maybe, after reading this, kids will go to a restaurant and remember to sit in their seats “with a nice smile.” (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1453-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2001
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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
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