Subtly untraditional, with lovely prose.
Folk and fairy tales intersect in tiny ways.
Loosely organized in and around a frozen forest where “the streams were iced, the bushes bare” come seven classical tales. There are witches here, “some with cold hearts, and others with hot ovens and ugly appetites”; there is “beauty like an icicle—sharp and slippery.” Parents die, and children either turn “bitter as walnuts” or stay “sweet as cherries.” Each tale keeps mostly to itself, holding its integrity and recognizability—but they whisper to one another. A “sunny forest populated by bunnies and bluebirds” shows up more than once in contrast to the frozen one; the huntsman who slits open Red Riding Hood’s wolf is “returning from a terrible errand,” which hauntingly reveals that he’s Snow White’s huntsman too. Red’s wolf inquires whether her grandmother lives “in the sugar house,” a reference to "Hansel and Gretel." A dry, repeated lesson about beauty in character whisks past. Jenkins experiments with modern moral complexity by afflicting Red’s wolf with painful hunger and self-hatred for how he sates it and by painting the Frog Prince’s princess—who never gets to throw her frog against a wall—as problematically girly and spoiled. An old trope of blindness connoting evil remains. Humans are ostensibly white; a tree sprite is brown. Eason’s illustrations seem consciously to evoke the work of Trina Schart Hyman.
Subtly untraditional, with lovely prose. (author’s note) (Fairy tales. 5-10)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6558-6
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
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
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
