A Catholic allegory of Jesus’ life that’s packed with references.
An allegorical tale equates a father’s love for his son with God’s love for Jesus.
An elderly man loves only his son more than his immense art collection. The two enjoy it together, imagining themselves in the scenes and intervening in the lives of portrait subjects. When war (presumably World War I) breaks out, the son buoys the spirits of his fellow soldiers in the trenches with stories of life in his father’s mansion. Three days after the son’s death, the father receives a naïvely painted portrait of his son, the face bearing the marks of war. The father gives it the place of honor over the hearth, and, years later, when he auctions off his entire collection, it is this portrait that starts the bidding—to the horror of the rich collectors who want the masterpieces. The sole bidder, a recipient of the father’s charity, offers $7, all he has. And thus ends the auction, for “according to the wishes of the father, whoever takes the son, gets everything.” Nobisso and Schluenderfritz pack the book with Roman Catholic references and allusions that readers may still be discovering after several readings (the backs of the cover flaps explain them all). The illustrations use facial expression, body language, perspective, and the smudginess of their media to marvelous effect. All the people depicted are White. Those with backgrounds in the faith will best appreciate/understand this tale.
A Catholic allegory of Jesus’ life that’s packed with references. (Picture book. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-940112-98-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Gingerbread House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings.
A loquacious, lovable dog narrates the challenges of shelter life as he longs for a home.
Friendly three-legged Chance is the perfect guide to Dogtown, a shelter that houses both warmblooded and robot dogs. In fact, she’s “Management’s lucky charm,” roaming freely without being confined to a cage and leaving kibble for her mouse friend. Life is pretty good. But she still yearns for reunification with her family and, like many of the living pups, harbors suspicion of her robot counterparts, who are convenient and more easily adoptable but lacking in personality. When Metal Head, an oddly engineered e-dog, bonds with a child during a shelter reading program, Chance’s assumptions about heartless robot dogs are upended. As Chance connects with Metal Head, the two make a brief escape into the wider world, and Chance learns a familiar lesson: Everyone longs for a place to belong. Memories of Chance’s happy home loom large in her mind: Easy days with the Bessers, a sweet Black family, were disrupted by a neglectful dogsitter, the accident that cost Chance her leg, and Chance’s flight in search of safety. Chance’s chatty narrative style includes flashbacks, vignettes about fellow shelter pets, and thoughtful observations, for example, about the “boohoos,” or sad new arrivals. The story offers many moments of laughter and reflection, all greatly enhanced by West’s utterly charming grayscale illustrations of irresistible pooches.
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781250811608
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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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