Thornhill (Before and After, 1997, etc.) retells the ancient “sky is falling!” tale informally: being a “worrywart,” a hare is startled into believing that the world is breaking up when a mango falls behind him. Soon he’s joined in his flight by 999 more hares, plus “a thousand boars,” “a thousand deer,” and “a thousand tigers,” etc.—all of whom are stopped in their tracks by a calm lion, who gets to the cause of the panic and leaves everyone “pretty embarrassed.” Frames set off Thornhill’s increasingly crowded paintings, which in composition, as well as delicacy of natural detail, resemble Demi’s Indian-flavored art, though not as delicately. In each frame, the mango is dominant, but careful observers will note that the background echoes the palm grove or thicket or marsh of each new animal to join the throng. The telling is arch and clever, pitched just right for reading aloud with a grin, though the final scene of the thousands of animals returning to their habitat might be hard for a group to see without getting close. Not a replacement for Rafe Martin’s Foolish Rabbit’s Big Mistake, illustrated by Ed Young (1985), this does have a slightly different focus as, beyond the tale itself, the cast is composed of endangered Indian animals, all of whom are introduced at the end with a note about their loss of habitat. (Picture book/folk tale. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2002
ISBN: 1-894379-39-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your dreads! Isadora once again plies her hand using colorful, textured collages to depict her fourth fairy tale relocated to Africa. The narrative follows the basic story line: Taken by an evil sorceress at birth, Rapunzel is imprisoned in a tower; Rapunzel and the prince “get married” in the tower and she gets pregnant. The sorceress cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and tricks the prince, who throws himself from the tower and is blinded by thorns. The terse ending states: “The prince led Rapunzel and their twins to his kingdom, where they were received with great joy and lived happily every after.” Facial features, clothing, dreadlocks, vultures and the prince riding a zebra convey a generic African setting, but at times, the mixture of patterns and textures obfuscates the scenes. The textile and grain characteristic of the hewn art lacks the elegant romance of Zelinksy’s Caldecott version. Not a first purchase, but useful in comparing renditions to incorporate a multicultural aspect. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-24772-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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