A serviceable outing for an unusual young hero.
What good is a cape when you have no superpowers?
Esteban loves his long green cape. Whether he’s out shopping at the market with his mom and little sister, at the doctor’s office, or climbing into bed, the would-be superhero is always wearing his cape. “But there is one problem: his cape cannot do ANYTHING.” Esteban can’t fly with it or use it for magic tricks. Fed up, he even tries to sell the cape, but nobody buys it. One day at the park Esteban spots an abandoned baby doll on the playground. When a rainstorm unexpectedly rolls in, threatening to drench the deserted toy, he knows just what to do. “ ‘Don’t worry, baby!’ he says. ‘I’ll save you!’ ” Though the occasionally stilted text might pull some readers out of the story, Mercado-López (a professor of women’s studies at Fresno State) freshens an at-first familiar narrative with an unexpected resolution. Determined to protect the doll, Esteban uses his cape to care for it and keep it clean, a rejection of both superhero stereotype and gender norms that is unquestioned in his loving Latino family. DeLange’s colorful, flat illustrations vary very little in energy, barely stirring beyond pleasant. (Esteban and his family are all featured with light brown skin.) Both English text and Baeza Ventura’s Spanish translation reside on the left-hand pages, while the illustrations take up the right-hand pages.
A serviceable outing for an unusual young hero. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-55885-847-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Piñata Books/Arte Público
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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