Visually evocative of time and place but spoiled by apparently incomplete research and debatable historical claims.
Italy’s famous horse race, the Palio di Siena, serves as background for a medieval child’s first experience with a banker.
Both the race and banking are misrepresented here. Concerned that the toy he’s persuaded his papa to buy will be damaged by the festive crowds, Enzo asks a money-changer seated at his banco (table) to mind it—then manages to lose the essential receipt. Enzo frets, but (in an ending that is likely to excite skepticism in modern, or at least adult, readers) after the race’s wild celebrations, the grave graybeard gives the toy back anyway. Landmann’s illustrations, done in Renaissance Sienese style, outclass the sketchy storyline with scenes of cocked-headed, olive-skinned figures in elegant period robes placed in narrow medieval streets decked with simplified flags of the localities, the contrade, that compete in the event to this day. Still, even she gives the money-changer a cash box but neither ledger nor scales. In closing notes the author conflates the modern Palio with its medieval predecessors and makes a decidedly arguable claim that modern banking is a Sienese invention.
Visually evocative of time and place but spoiled by apparently incomplete research and debatable historical claims. (afterword, timeline) (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5474-2
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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