Both language and image are gorgeous in this affecting story of generations from Bunting (Some Frog!, 1998, etc.) and Barbour. When Sophia is seven, her grandfather gives her the olive tree that lives on the land their family once owned on a tiny island in faraway Greece. The next year, just before he dies, he gives Sophia the honey-colored beads that were her grandmother’s, and asks her to hang them in her olive tree. Sophia and her mother make the journey from California to Greece, and then to the island, and Sophia describes what she sees and hears, e.g., her mother, reading aloud the names of the Greek shops “as if she liked the sound of them in her mouth”; sheep that bleat just like American sheep; the sound of the bouzouki playing. Bunting makes the strangeness of the journey and Sophia’s growing understanding of her family history palpable, and Sophia’s feelings when she places the beads in the ancient tree are complex but clear in a way that children will understand. The colors and shapes owe something to Chagall, and the sun-drenched blues and yellows, purples and violets recall Mediterranean folk pottery in the intensity of the color and the abstract, gestural line. The double-page opening of Sophia and her mother before the olive tree vibrates with emotion—a passionate marriage of word and text. (Picture book. 4-10)
Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-027573-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-688-13166-2 King Midas And The Golden Touch ($16.00; PLB $15.63; Apr.; 32 pp.; 0-688-13165-4; PLB 0-688-13166-2): The familiar tale of King Midas gets the golden touch in the hands of Craft and Craft (Cupid and Psyche, 1996). The author takes her inspiration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s retelling, capturing the essence of the tale with the use of pithy dialogue and colorful description. Enchanting in their own right, the illustrations summon the Middle Ages as a setting, and incorporate colors so lavish that when they are lost to the uniform gold spurred by King Midas’s touch, the point of the story is further burnished. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-13165-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
Lunge-Larsen and Preus debut with this story of a flower that blooms for the first time to commemorate the uncommon courage of a girl who saves her people from illness. The girl, an Ojibwe of the northern woodlands, knows she must journey to the next village to get the healing herb, mash-ki- ki, for her people, who have all fallen ill. After lining her moccasins with rabbit fur, she braves a raging snowstorm and crosses a dark frozen lake to reach the village. Then, rather than wait for morning, she sets out for home while the villagers sleep. When she loses her moccasins in the deep snow, her bare feet are cut by icy shards, and bleed with every step until she reaches her home. The next spring beautiful lady slippers bloom from the place where her moccasins were lost, and from every spot her injured feet touched. Drawing on Ojibwe sources, the authors of this fluid retelling have peppered the tale with native words and have used traditional elements, e.g., giving voice to the forces of nature. The accompanying watercolors, with flowing lines, jewel tones, and decorative motifs, give stately credence to the story’s iconic aspects. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90512-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
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