Entrancing and complex.
A grieving young boy goes on an impossible adventure and returns, healed.
Nayeri’s text is minimal, even cryptic: just about 50 words, spooled out over the page turns in brief, elliptical spurts—and then reversed, conveying an entirely different meaning. Little listeners are unlikely to notice the clever construction initially, so beguiled will they be by Rockefeller’s lush, jewel-toned images. They set the scene first in a cozy, medieval-esque cottage beset by grief: A weeping child huddles next to a sorrowful bearded adult; above them hangs a painting of the child as a happy toddler cuddled between the bearded adult, now smiling, and a beaming woman. All are tan-skinned. The text reads, “She was gone.” In extremis, the child flees to the forest and pulls a sword from the ground. From there the adventure emulates a video game’s many levels, including an encounter with fearsome spiders, an underground ride in a rickety cart, a plunge into a sea serpent’s lair, and more. At the end of his quest—the middle of the book—there’s an ethereal woman, an agonized question, and the sublimely reassuring answer. The boy’s journey home traverses the same territory, but with smiling confidence. The illustrations are so filled with detail that they demand repeat visits, which will prompt little ones and their grown-ups to explore both text and subtext further.
Entrancing and complex. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780063277168
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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