An app to energize the creative juices.
Essentially an interactive black-and-white coloring book filled with amusing tools to guide users in their pursuit to locate their inner artists.
"To create is to destroy," is the tagline for this text, which opens with basic instructions that encourage users to freely express themselves through a series of drawing exercises that are wide open to interpretation. For example, users are instructed to “scribble wildly, violently, with reckless abandon” or import pictures from their iPad for creative defacing. Each page features an array of tools at the bottom; these range from a simple pencil to a fingerpaint tool, which enables users to add color and special touches to each page. iPad functionality is well leveraged, though users will need to fight the urge to turn pages with a finger swipe, which only frustratingly draws lines across their drawing. Instead a patient finger-tap on the page’s bottom corners enables users to easily navigate. Users can save, e-mail or even utilize their Facebook or Flickr accounts to share their masterpieces. Due to some edgy page instructions ("Write as many four-letter words as you can"), this text is probably best suited for teens and adults.
An app to energize the creative juices. (iPad interactive sketchbook. 13 & up)Pub Date: July 19, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Big brother Duane is off in boot camp, and Justin is left trying to hold the parental units together. Fat, acne-ridden, and missing his best friend Ben, who’s in the throes of his first boy-girl relationship with Cass, Justin’s world is dreary. It gets worse when he realizes that all of his mother’s suspicions about his father are probably true, and that Dad may not return from his latest business trip. Surprisingly ultra-cool Jemmie, who is also missing her best friend, Cass, actually recognizes his existence and her grandmother invites Justin to use their piano in the afternoons when Jemmie’s at cross-country practice. The “big nothing” place, where Justin retreats in time of trouble, is a rhythmic world and soon begins to include melody and provide Justin with a place to express himself. Practice and discipline accompany this gradual exploration of his talent. The impending war in Iraq gives this story a definite place in time, and its distinct characters make it satisfying and surprisingly realistic. Misfit finds fit. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-56145-326-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2004
Troubled teen meets totemic catalyst in Mikaelsen’s (Petey, 1998, etc.) earnest tribute to Native American spirituality. Fifteen-year-old Cole is cocky, embittered, and eaten up by anger at his abusive parents. After repeated skirmishes with the law, he finally faces jail time when he viciously beats a classmate. Cole’s parole officer offers him an alternative—Circle Justice, an innovative justice program based on Native traditions. Sentenced to a year on an uninhabited Arctic island under the supervision of Edwin, a Tlingit elder, Cole provokes an attack from a titanic white “Spirit Bear” while attempting escape. Although permanently crippled by the near-death experience, he is somehow allowed yet another stint on the island. Through Edwin’s patient tutoring, Cole gradually masters his rage, but realizes that he needs to help his former victims to complete his own healing. Mikaelsen paints a realistic portrait of an unlikable young punk, and if Cole’s turnaround is dramatic, it is also convincingly painful and slow. Alas, the rest of the characters are cardboard caricatures: the brutal, drunk father, the compassionate, perceptive parole officer, and the stoic and cryptic Native mentor. Much of the plot stretches credulity, from Cole’s survival to his repeated chances at rehabilitation to his victim being permitted to share his exile. Nonetheless, teens drawn by the brutality of Cole’s adventures, and piqued by Mikaelsen’s rather muscular mysticism, might absorb valuable lessons on anger management and personal responsibility. As melodramatic and well-meaning as the teens it targets. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-380-97744-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
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