An exquisite volume of most interest to students of art, church libraries, or large libraries with extensive art collections.
This striking version of the Nativity story is illustrated with reproductions of fresco paintings by the Italian renaissance artist Giotto.
The frescoes were painted in Padua, Italy, in about 1305 and are considered to be Giotto’s masterwork and among the greatest masterpieces of the Early Renaissance. These frescoes tell the story of Mary and Jesus, and portions have been reproduced for this book. They illustrate the familiar story, beginning with the appearance of the angel Gabriel to Mary, continuing through the birth of Jesus, and ending with the flight of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus into Egypt. The illustrations are exquisite from an artistic viewpoint, with finely detailed faces surrounded by golden haloes. The illustrations are set on one page each double-page spread, with the text set opposite in an attractive typeface on ivory paper with a decorative border above. The lyrical text is based on the four Gospels of the New Testament. There are no notes in the book about the sources or development of the text, and there are only a few sentences about Giotto, which is a shame, as further, specific information about the frescoes would have extended the use of the book in library collections.
An exquisite volume of most interest to students of art, church libraries, or large libraries with extensive art collections. (Picture book/religion. 9 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-988-8240-46-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: minedition
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Reads like a grown-up’s over-the-top effort to peddle a set of kid-friendly premises—a notion that worked for the author’s...
A boy asks Santa for a dinosaur and gets a life-changing experience.
Cribbing freely from any number of classic Christmas stories and films, musician/vlogger Fletcher places his 10-year-old protagonist, William, who uses a wheelchair, at the head of an all-white human cast that features his widowed dad, a girl bully, and a maniacal hunter—plus a dinosaur newly hatched from an egg discovered in the North Pole’s ice by Santa’s elves. Having stowed away on Santa’s sleigh, Christmasaurus meets and bonds with William on Christmas Eve, then, fueled by the power of a child’s belief, flies the lad to the North Pole (“It’s somewhere between Imagination and Make-Believe”) for a meeting with the jolly toymaker himself. Upon his return William gets to see the hunter (who turns out to be his uncle) gun down his dad (who survives), blast a plush dinosaur toy to bits, and then with a poster-sized “CRUNCH! GULP!” go down Christmasaurus’ hatch. In the meantime (emphasis on “mean”), after William spots his previously vicious tormenter, Brenda Payne, crying in the bushes, he forgives trespasses that in real life would have had her arrested and confined long ago. Seemingly just for laffs, the author tosses in doggerel-speaking elves (“ ‘If it’s a girl, can we call her Ginny?’ / ‘I think it’s a boy! Look, he’s got a thingy!’ ”) and closes with further lyrics and a list of 10 (secular) things to love about Christmas. Devries adds sugary illustrations or spot art to nearly every spread.
Reads like a grown-up’s over-the-top effort to peddle a set of kid-friendly premises—a notion that worked for the author’s The Dinosaur That Pooped a Planet (2017), but not here. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7330-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Provocative yet cautious.
A community transformed by swastikas, and the response.
Chokecherry, Colorado, is a small town with a lot going on. A group of paleontologists from Massachusetts have set up a research station after fossilized dinosaur poop is discovered in the area. Some residents still whisper about the Night of a Thousand Flames in 1978, when Ku Klux Klan members flocked to the area and burned crosses. And the local media is sent into an uproar when Michael Amorosa, a Dominican boy and one of the few students of color, discovers a swastika painted on a wall at Chokecherry Middle School. Told in alternating perspectives, the story follows the students as they embark on a lengthy tolerance-building curriculum, come up with an art project to commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust, deal with an out-of-town YouTuber who wants to go viral with his commentary on the story, and learn more about themselves and their family histories. The only Jewish girl, Dana Levinson, helps Lincoln Rowley study for his bar mitzvah after he learns that his maternal grandmother, rescued and raised by nuns as a Christian, was the sole member of her family to survive the Holocaust. While the story is engaging, with many twists and turns, the different voices blend together, and emotional depth takes a back seat to educational goals. There’s a lot to ponder here about mistakes, intention, the difference between ignorance and hatred, and religious identity.
Provocative yet cautious. (author's note) (Fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: July 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-62911-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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