A classic underdog tale frequently outshone by the strong shapes and intense colors that each page turn brings into view.
Action and character take a back seat to the art in this tersely retold version of the Japanese “Tom Thumb.”
The story, presented in blocks of small type surrounded by acres of white or monochrome space, minimizes specific cultural or place markers but sticks to the standard plotline. In “a country far away,” a peasant couple sees a wish fulfilled with the birth of a tiny lad who later sets out for adventure. On the way to a city, he meets an ogre who promises to use a magic hammer to give him full height in exchange for a certain “beautiful treasure.” Issun demurs, then goes on to become playmate for a nobleman’s daughter. She, after he rescues her from the ogre and uses the hammer on himself to grow, takes “a different view of Issun Bôshi,” so that “their story is not yet over.” The illustrations are as allusive as this final line—alternating stylized landscapes with scenes of theatrically posed figures clad in a mix of Japanese and Western dress and ending not with a view of the principals but a generic assemblage of items from earlier pictures. Looking like a series of screen or woodblock prints, the dazzling art features broad, opaque layers of high-contrast orange, blue and yellow with combed or rubbed portions to give the flat surfaces shading and texture.
A classic underdog tale frequently outshone by the strong shapes and intense colors that each page turn brings into view. (Picture book/folk tale. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-3-89955-718-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Gestalten
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some...
With a little help from his audience, a young storyteller gets over a solid case of writer’s block in this engaging debut.
Despite the (sometimes creatively spelled) examples produced by all his classmates and the teacher’s assertion that “Stories are everywhere!” Ralph can’t get past putting his name at the top of his paper. One day, lying under the desk in despair, he remembers finding an inchworm in the park. That’s all he has, though, until his classmates’ questions—“Did it feel squishy?” “Did your mom let you keep it?” “Did you name it?”—open the floodgates for a rousing yarn featuring an interloping toddler, a broad comic turn and a dramatic rescue. Hanlon illustrates the episode with childlike scenes done in transparent colors, featuring friendly-looking children with big smiles and widely spaced button eyes. The narrative text is printed in standard type, but the children’s dialogue is rendered in hand-lettered printing within speech balloons. The episode is enhanced with a page of elementary writing tips and the tantalizing titles of his many subsequent stories (“When I Ate Too Much Spaghetti,” “The Scariest Hamster,” “When the Librarian Yelled Really Loud at Me,” etc.) on the back endpapers.
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some budding young writers off and running. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-0761461807
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amazon Children's Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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