John Gardner's variations on fairy tales have been marked by a polished and fanciful cleverness, but these unpretentiously witty rhymes are an altogether more genuine pleasure. Gardner's lines and meters are as ragged as the stock representations drawn by members of his family—but looser and more spontaneously playful. When he promises morals such as the medieval bestiaries provided, you know they won't be straight; but Gardner's are not the spoofy addenda of a latter-day Belloc. (Witness "The Cobra" whose ever-acquiescent victims learn too late that "They might as well have told the truth.") He makes his share of comparisons to human behavior, as with the baboon's alleged habit of dropping rocks over cliffs even though his attacker might be above and behind him: ". . . Clearly this strategy doesn't always pay./ But why change a method you've got down pat?" Elsewhere his variously edifying and delighting creatures include a realistic armadillo (". . . For unlike people who are more complex/ He prays for nothing but what he expects"), a sensitive buzzard (who broods because ". . . a Buzzard's like anyone else in that/ He doesn't like being shuddered at"), a deceptively graceful swan (actually "she's paddling like crazy"), and a pesky, anachronistic possum to whom—after the Son argues that "he's got to go"—God whispers, "Lie down. Play dead." Sly, sparkling fun.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1977
ISBN: 0394834836
Page Count: 98
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1977
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An incredible connector text for young readers eager to graduate to weighty conversations about our yesterday, our now, and...
Past and present are quilted together in this innovative overview of black Americans’ triumphs and challenges in the United States.
Alexander’s poetry possesses a straightforward, sophisticated, steady rhythm that, paired with Nelson’s detail-oriented oil paintings, carries readers through generations chronicling “the unforgettable,” “the undeniable,” “the unflappable,” and “the righteous marching ones,” alongside “the unspeakable” events that shape the history of black Americans. The illustrator layers images of black creators, martyrs, athletes, and neighbors onto blank white pages, patterns pages with the bodies of slaves stolen and traded, and extends a memorial to victims of police brutality like Sandra Bland and Michael Brown past the very edges of a double-page spread. Each movement of Alexander’s poem is a tribute to the ingenuity and resilience of black people in the U.S., with textual references to the writings of Gwendolyn Brooks, Martin Luther King Jr., Langston Hughes, and Malcolm X dotting stanzas in explicit recognition and grateful admiration. The book ends with a glossary of the figures acknowledged in the book and an afterword by the author that imprints the refrain “Black. Lives. Matter” into the collective soul of readers, encouraging them, like the cranes present throughout the book, to “keep rising.”
An incredible connector text for young readers eager to graduate to weighty conversations about our yesterday, our now, and our tomorrow. (Picture book/poetry. 6-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-78096-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
Wow.
The stories of the births of the universe, the planet Earth, and a human child are told in this picture book.
Bauer begins with cosmic nothing: “In the dark / in the deep, deep dark / a speck floated / invisible as thought / weighty as God.” Her powerful words build the story of the creation of the universe, presenting the science in poetic free verse. First, the narrative tells of the creation of stars by the Big Bang, then the explosions of some of those stars, from which dust becomes the matter that coalesces into planets, then the creation of life on Earth: a “lucky planet…neither too far / nor too near…its yellow star…the Sun.” Holmes’ digitally assembled hand-marbled paper-collage illustrations perfectly pair with the text—in fact the words and illustrations become an inseparable whole, as together they both delineate and suggest—the former telling the story and the latter, with their swirling colors suggestive of vast cosmos, contributing the atmosphere. It’s a stunning achievement to present to readers the factual events that created the birth of the universe, the planet Earth, and life on Earth with such an expressive, powerful creativity of words paired with illustrations so evocative of the awe and magic of the cosmos. But then the story goes one brilliant step further and gives the birth of a child the same beginning, the same sense of magic, the same miracle.
Wow. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7883-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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