Attractive illustrations fail to save an ultimately unsatisfying story.
A small, crooked fir tree becomes a Christmas tree for a homeless boy and then grows into a huge and healthy tree in a park.
The scraggly tree begins life as a crooked seedling on a Christmas tree farm. It is mistakenly sent to a city along with larger trees and given away on Christmas Eve to a boy who is living under a railway bridge. He plants the tree in a small box filled with muddy dirt and decorates the tree with candles, and his glowing Christmas tree draws a huge crowd of city folk who join together singing Christmas carols. A street sweeper later finds the discarded, half-dead tree and plants it in a park, where it miraculously grows tall and healthy. While the detailed watercolor illustrations and large trim size are appealing, there are some logical gaps in the text and puzzling inconsistencies between text and illustrations. For example, the text indicates the mature tree is not “big and tall” but “at least cheerfully stout,” and the illustrations clearly show a very tall tree. While the tree survives against all odds, children will wonder what happened to the homeless boy and care about his welfare more than the future of a tree. The implication in the final image that the boy has grown and had children of his own is subtle and easy to miss. The boy and most of the other characters are white; a few people in crowd scenes have dark skin.
Attractive illustrations fail to save an ultimately unsatisfying story. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7917-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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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