Charmingly told, handsomely presented.
A kindly fairy helps a group of peaceful Travellers escape imprisonment in this richly illustrated Irish tale.
As they barter for food in exchange for repairing pots and kettles in villages they pass through in their barrel-shaped wagons, the Travellers have no money to pay taxes. So when the greedy new king and queen order them to be seized for forced labor, a beautiful fairy takes pity on them and offers to shrink all who are willing into the tiny, elusive fairies known henceforth as leprechauns. The tale was originally published in the Republic of Ireland and has been transcribed largely as Donoghue Ward has told it to live audiences, with oral tics and cadences intact (“And she appeared a load of food in front of the little girl and boy and the old king of the Travellers, and she softened a bed for them with a magic wand”). Finely wrought illustrations burst with exuberantly hued vines, flowers, and sprays of leaves and petals surrounding groups of smiling, light-skinned figures in plain, loose clothing. The scowling monarchs and their mail-clad tax soldiers—all drably monochromatic, in contrast—are soon sent packing back to their original unnamed country, leaving the now-little folk and their fellows who chose to return to their original size to dance together in green meadows and fairy circles. “So that is the end of the story,” the author concludes. A closing note describes the Travellers, “a traditionally nomadic indigenous ethnic minority group from Ireland.”
Charmingly told, handsomely presented. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9781915071569
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little Island
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
Despite the book’s clarity, many young listeners still may not understand the enormity of the enterprise or its importance...
Brown brings to life a complex undertaking that had important repercussions, though his early-elementary audience may not be quite ready for it.
The book’s trajectory is clearly laid out: A simple map traces an almost-300-mile path through the wilderness from Fort Ticonderoga in New York to Boston. The first line draws readers firmly into the past—“It was the winter of 1775”—and defines the problem: British soldiers occupy Boston, and the Americans have no way to dislodge them. Despite the seeming impossibility of transporting heavy cannons over snowy roads, across icy lakes and through forbidding forests, young Henry Knox, a bookseller and militia member, volunteered to get the job done. As he has in other informational picture books, Brown uses a variety of page layouts, including some sequential panels, to convey the action. Cool blues and icy whites evoke the wintry landscape; figures and faces are loosely drawn but ably express emotion and determination. Likewise, the brief text employs lyrical language to both get the basic facts across and communicate the feelings and experiences of Henry and his band of hardy helpers. Children intrigued by Brown’s succinct summary will want to follow up with Anita Silvey’s Henry Knox: Bookseller, Solider, Patriot, illustrated by Wendell Minor (2010).
Despite the book’s clarity, many young listeners still may not understand the enormity of the enterprise or its importance in U.S. history (bibliography) (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59643-266-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
Painfully parochial.
A wide-angled overview of the settling of the American West in first-person, free-verse poems.
As the title implies, the era is regarded, even by the few non-Anglo witnesses, from a decidedly Eurocentric point of view. Garland opens with statements from Sacagawea (the only Native American), trapper Jedediah Smith, and George Catlin, but all of her other “voices” are anonymous ones ("I am a girl walking along the Oregon Trail") until Annie Oakley steps in toward the end. The observations are largely likewise generic—“Since the Louisiana Purchase twenty-two years ago, / trappers have been depleting the beaver everywhere,” complains Smith. They are occasionally cringe-inducing: the Chinese railroad worker is proud to have earned “respect from our bosses for a job well-done,” and the “Buffalo Soldier” identifies himself as “a former slave / who joined this all-Negro regiment in 1866.” A long historical note displays similar lack of sensitivity, capped by a claim that the Indian Wars were started by “renegades” out for payback for the slaughter of the buffalo. Depicted in period dress and settings, most of the improbably clean, largely light-skinned figures in Buckner’s painted portraits look directly at readers. The chronologically arranged entries end with a modern child at a rodeo, observing that “today the Indians wear boots and hats and jeans. / But for a little while, in front of cheering crowds, / the old Wild West lives once again.”
Painfully parochial. (glossary, map, bibliographies) (Informational picture book/poetry. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4556-1961-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Pelican
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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