A solid adaptation, with a girl for a hero.
Sumptuously illustrated and enriched with some clever effects, this slightly dark tale should engage lovers of fairy tales as well as those looking for a good story.
This is a rich tale complete with an evil goblin, a beautiful queen and a dark, magic mirror that shatters and falls to earth, distorting the vision of everyone it touches. When young Kai is pierced by slivers of this mirror and subsequently kidnapped by the Snow Queen, his friend Gerda must find a way to save him. Some religious elements of Andersen’s full story are retained in this version but are downplayed from the original. Backed with professional music and sound effects, the intricate, Bruegel-esque illustrations house many interactions, including minigames, puzzles, hidden objects and a coloring book. Readers can blow on the top of the screen to stoke the fire on one page and start a snow flurry on another. The app makes use of the iPad’s camera with a fun-house effect that reflects readers in the evil mirror. Children who look carefully will even find themselves reflected in the Snow Queen’s eyes. An animated mouse icon easily turns the professional narration on and off; the navigation bar at the bottom of each page allows users to adjust the volume, highlights the interactions and provides for page selection.
A solid adaptation, with a girl for a hero. (iPad storybook app. 6-12)Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Timecode
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Will and his little brother Steve face third grade and kindergarten in this over-the-top chapter book in the venerable Step-Into-Reading series for new readers. Will knows that going to the same school as his brother is going to be a challenge, but he does not know how much of a challenge it will be. From the moment Will has to hold Steve’s hand and take him to kindergarten, everything that can go wrong does. Whether Steve is slamming all the lockers, making faces through the third-grade window or starting a food fight in the cafeteria, he’s embarrassing his older brother. Expressive and stylized color illustrations add to the exaggerated plot lines. A comfortable, predictable ending on the bench outside of the principal’s office will make new readers everywhere smile with recognition. No one will mistake this for a lesson book about back to school, but new readers will find many reasons to laugh out loud with Will and Steve. (Fiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: July 10, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-375-83904-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
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