A sweetly drawn morality tale with a mixed, muddled, and overstated message. Brother Bartholomew tends the monastery apple trees, but he’s old, and the deer get in through the broken fence. Young brother Stephen aches to get charge of the orchard, he’ll mend the fence and keep the deer out and won’t everyone praise his good work. Before Brother Bartholomew dies, he leaves Brother Stephen with a message, but Stephen doesn’t hear it. He rebuilds the fence, even putting barbed wire above it, but when a great buck tangles itself in the fence, Stephen realizes his pride. He releases the deer, takes down the fence, and shares the apples. As he grows old, another young monk wonders at the broken fence and the deer, but Stephen repeats what Brother Bartholomew said: “God will provide.” If the lesson is that pride goeth before a fall, that’s unclear; if the lesson is that we should live in peace with all creatures, why does the deer have Brother Bartholomew’s eyes? And surely no monastery would be as badly overseen as this one. Not very good for children, nor for adults either. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-59078-096-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2004
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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