According to an old Kabbalah legend, when God made the world, “he wanted to paint everything with a special kind of light so the world would shine with goodness.” Too powerful to be stored in a jar, the light burst forth, shattering into shards all over the globe. To make the world whole and peaceful again, God created people to help search for and find each broken piece of light. This rendition of an old midrash creation story is filled with a beautiful and simple message of hope. A peaceful coexistence is still possible for a world that is torn apart by war, hunger and blind hatred, if people look for the spark of light in everyone and everything. As in her biographical collection, Paths to Peace (2006), Zalben departs from her usual artistic style with this symbolic and elegant interpretation of the Judaic practice of “Tikun Olam,” or healing of the world. Using a combined media of paints, pencil and various household and other objects such as pieces of sand, seaweed, kasha grains, flower petals and cleansers, Zalben matches her well-crafted words with detailed and delicate collages of naturalistic plant and animal scenes and a multicultural group of dancing, joyful children surrounded by the glitter and glow of all those shards of light. Special and inspiring for all cultures. (Picture book. 5-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-525-47827-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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