Confronted with failure followed by success, a jaunty spider puts honor before fame. With his gladiator name, Spartacus should be destined for greatness, but his weak threads and droopy webs make him the laughing stock of escaping flies and moths. Humiliated and hungry, a confounded Spartacus gets a helpful tip from a mouse and soon spins the strongest threads into unbreakable webs. But what if his web traps all the flies, moths, birds and even airplanes—forever? Faced with such daunting consequences, Spartacus decides his "old, loppy threads" may be just fine. Appropriately armed with gladiator helmet, shield and spear, Spartacus tells his story in the first person as he casts silken threads and weaves floppy webs across double-page spreads. Delicate watercolor-and-pencil illustrations in muted browns and grays rely on simple shapes, white space, arresting angles and surprising close-ups to provide a spider's-eye peek at Spartacus and his diminutive engineering feats. Readers should enjoy this eight-legged hero who succeeds by being himself—if they can get over being worried about how he will feed himself. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-56846-213-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Creative Company
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2010
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work.
A young spinach hater becomes a spinach lover after she has to grow her own in a class garden.
Unable to trade away the seed packet she gets from her teacher for tomatoes, cukes or anything else more palatable, Sylvia reluctantly plants and nurtures a pot of the despised veggie then transplants it outside in early spring. By the end of school, only the plot’s lettuce, radishes and spinach are actually ready to eat (talk about a badly designed class project!)—and Sylvia, once she nerves herself to take a nibble, discovers that the stuff is “not bad.” She brings home an armful and enjoys it from then on in every dish: “And that was the summer Sylvia Spivens said yes to spinach.” Raff uses unlined brushwork to give her simple cartoon illustrations a pleasantly freehand, airy look, and though Pryor skips over the (literally, for spinach) gritty details in both the story and an afterword, she does cover gardening basics in a simple and encouraging way.
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9836615-1-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Readers to Eaters
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
There are many parallel legends – the seal women, for example, with their strange sad longings – but none is more direct than this American Indian story of a girl who is carried away in a horses’ stampede…to ride thenceforth by the side of a beautiful stallion who leads the wild horses. The girl had always loved horses, and seemed to understand them “in a special way”; a year after her disappearance her people find her riding beside the stallion, calf in tow, and take her home despite his strong resistance. But she is unhappy and returns to the stallion; after that, a beautiful mare is seen riding always beside him. Goble tells the story soberly, allowing it to settle, to find its own level. The illustrations are in the familiar striking Goble style, but softened out here and there with masses of flowers and foliage – suitable perhaps for the switch in subject matter from war to love, but we miss the spanking clean design of Custer’s Last Battle and The Fetterman Fight. 6-7
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1978
ISBN: 0689845049
Page Count: -
Publisher: Bradbury
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978
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