Marcel has the misfortune of belonging to a totally self- absorbed, repressive, and humorless Parisian dentist—one M. Bibot—who is without compassion for his dog (first seen menaced by a disciplinary newspaper) or his patients: he smirks with sadistic pleasure while extracting a tooth and withholds a painkiller from one sufferer when she offers, in lieu of money, two figs that ``can make your dreams come true.'' Still, when his dream does come true after he eats one fig (it's mortifying—he finds himself in his underwear in the street, while the Eiffel Tower ``droop[s] over as if it were made of soft rubber''), Bibot is filled with greedy anticipation; he's determined to dream a dream that will make him ``the richest man on earth.'' But justice remains poetic. Marcel snitches the other fig, and next morning Bibot discovers just what kind of vengeance the dog has chosen to exact. Children amused by the offbeat tale will probably miss its adult overtones, but Van Allsburg's soft, luminous illustrations, in warm tones of brown refined with deeper grays, should please everyone. His precisely rounded caricature of the dentist is as merciless as the supercilious man himself, while the masterful play of patterns—elegant Parisian stonework glimpsed from a roomful of antiseptic modern furniture, the tower pointing down at the fleeing dentist, the short-legged dog struggling against a taut leash on a polished stair—is delightful. Rather wickedly clever, but fun. (Picture book. 4+)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-395-67346-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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