An interesting addition to the shelf for fairy-tale enthusiasts.
A war-weary soldier uncovers the treachery of royals in this retelling of a Grimms’ fairy tale.
A soldier wanders the land, heavy-hearted from “all that he had seen and much that he had done, in the name of the king.” In the forest, he meets a vibrant woman and confesses that he has no will to live. The woman takes his hand and tells him of the mystery of the princesses and the tattered shoes. Whoever discovers why the king’s daughters are weary every morning, with worn shoes under their beds, will be rewarded with the choice of a bride from among them and ultimately the throne. Whoever tries and fails will be punished by death. With the woman’s guidance and assistance, the soldier discovers the secret of the princesses, their lovers, and their all-night parties—but he refuses the reward, thoroughly fed up with the lives of rulers. He sets off to find the woman in the forest who was good to him. The story is fluid and haunting, retaining the grim themes and archaic social mores of traditional fairy tales as well as their strangely intriguing, mysterious, and fantastical qualities. Abdollahi’s stylized illustrations use texture and line with a dark color scheme and figures whose aesthetic mirrors that of marionettes. The 12 beautiful princesses have a variety of skin tones and hair colors, and both protagonist and the woman who helps him have brown skin.
An interesting addition to the shelf for fairy-tale enthusiasts. (Picture book/fairy tale. 5-9)Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-910328-37-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Tiny Owl
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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