“When animals stand in the place of people and playfully speak their minds, this is what I call signifying,” writes Thomas (I Have Heard of a Land, 1998, etc.) in a foreword to this collection of fables set in a barnyard in Possum Neck, Mississippi. From celebrating the birth of a new chick to the death of an old Goose and the marriage of Crow, each vignette connects to the rituals, foibles, and truths of humankind. It’s Baby Rooster who teaches the others how to live together, his father who struts his prideful self, and his mama who takes care of her men folk. But whose voice is it booming from the heavens who tells Buzzard to be satisfied with his bald pate and to stop coveting Baby Rooster’s feathers? Onomatopoetic phrases appear throughout “steppity-step-stepping” the reader to death. More substantive free verse highlights a tale’s moral. These interruptions tend to bog down the reading, although they might make a read-aloud more fun for the listener. Berry’s black-and-white illustrations are charming, pointing up the human characteristics in these fowl. Cute, but not best of show. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2000
ISBN: 0-06-025377-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2000
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
In these 12 retellings, the Immortals come across as unusually benign. Dionysius at first suggests to King Midas that he give his excess wealth to the poor, for instance; the troubles that Pandora releases are originally imprisoned in the box by Prometheus’s brother Epimetheus out of compassion for humankind; and it’s Persephone herself who begs for a compromise that will allow her to stay with her beloved Hades for six months out of every year. Kimmel relates each tale in easy, natural-sounding language. And even though his Andromeda looks more Celtic than Ethiopian (as the oldest versions of the story have it), Montserrat’s figures combine appropriate monumentality with an appealing expressiveness. The stories are all familiar and available in more comprehensive collections, but the colorful illustrations and spacious page design make this a good choice for shared reading. (foreword) (Nonfiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4169-1534-8
Page Count: 112
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2007
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