Pinkwater’s terse 1972 tale of an ursine painter who stoutly defends his right to create against the sneers of two critics (“fine, proper gentlemen,” as the text has it) gets a major visual boost from new illustrations in this reissue. The text has been very slightly massaged, and big cubist scenes replace the author’s original small, almost minimalist paintings. Now the bear (wearing an increasingly spattered scarf) and his exaggeratedly dapper tormentors appear in grayscale around a bright semi-abstract canvas that develops, as pages turn, from a hazy smudge of blues and oranges into a lyrical evocation of leaves and water around a cozy hollow log. At the end, the text states only that the two critics leave muttering “Bears are not the sort of fellows to paint pictures,” but Johnson depicts them sinking into the picture’s stream until only their hats are left as part of the composition—a harsher but perhaps more just judgment on their prejudices. Bear makes a grand champion for all young artists, and it wouldn’t hurt for certain grown-ups to hear his message, either. (Picture book. 5-8, adult)
Pub Date: April 21, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-618-75923-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2008
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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