A math-loving sultana challenges her suitors to solve a riddle in an original tale that puts an appealingly independent young woman in charge of a traditional fairytale-style “beauty contest.” A powerful Persian sultan wants only the best of husbands for his only daughter, Aziza, and when his advisors fail him, he allows her to dictate the terms of her courtship. She announces that she will marry whoever can answer her riddle: “Placed above, it makes greater things small. Placed beside, it makes small things greater. In matters that count, it always comes first. Where others increase, it keeps all things the same. What is it?” An astronomer, a soldier, and a merchant in turn fail to solve the riddle, but Ahmed, a young farmer who loves numbers, answers the riddle and wins the sultana’s hand. Aziza’s riddle is tricky enough to be satisfying, but not too obscure for older children to solve on their own. Thompson (Mouse’s First Halloween, p. 968, etc.) includes an author’s note explaining the riddle and its solution fully, as well as Persia’s place in the history of mathematics. Wingerter’s (Bird Tales from Near and Far, 1998) delicate jewel-and-pastel acrylics evoke a glowing storybook Persia, and cleverly illustrate the solutions to the riddle as Ahmed answers it. Taken down to its bare bones, the book’s marriage plot is as old as the hills, but Aziza’s intelligence and the lovely illustrations make it a pleasing example thereof. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-31333-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Fans both young and formerly young will be pleased—100 percent.
Published in magazines, never seen since / Now resurrected for pleasure intense / Versified episodes numbering four / Featuring Marco, and Horton and more!
All of the entries in this follow-up to The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories (2011) involve a certain amount of sharp dealing. Horton carries a Kwuggerbug through crocodile-infested waters and up a steep mountain because “a deal is a deal”—and then is cheated out of his promised share of delicious Beezlenuts. Officer Pat heads off escalating, imagined disasters on Mulberry Street by clubbing a pesky gnat. Marco (originally met on that same Mulberry Street) concocts a baroque excuse for being late to school. In the closer, a smooth-talking Grinch (not the green sort) sells a gullible Hoobub a piece of string. In a lively introduction, uber-fan Charles D. Cohen (The Seuss, The Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss, 2002) provides publishing histories, places characters and settings in Seussian context, and offers insights into, for instance, the origin of “Grinch.” Along with predictably engaging wordplay—“He climbed. He grew dizzy. His ankles grew numb. / But he climbed and he climbed and he clum and he clum”—each tale features bright, crisply reproduced renditions of its original illustrations. Except for “The Hoobub and the Grinch,” which has been jammed into a single spread, the verses and pictures are laid out in spacious, visually appealing ways.
Fans both young and formerly young will be pleased—100 percent. (Picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-38298-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
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An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda.
Hank Zipzer, poster boy for dyslexic middle graders everywhere, stars in a new prequel series highlighting second-grade trials and triumphs.
Hank’s hopes of playing Aqua Fly, a comic-book character, in the upcoming class play founder when, despite plenty of coaching and preparation, he freezes up during tryouts. He is not particularly comforted when his sympathetic teacher adds a nonspeaking role as a bookmark to the play just for him. Following the pattern laid down in his previous appearances as an older child, he gets plenty of help and support from understanding friends (including Ashley Wong, a new apartment-house neighbor). He even manages to turn lemons into lemonade with a quick bit of improv when Nick “the Tick” McKelty, the sneering classmate who took his preferred role, blanks on his lines during the performance. As the aforementioned bully not only chokes in the clutch and gets a demeaning nickname, but is fat, boastful and eats like a pig, the authors’ sensitivity is rather one-sided. Still, Hank has a winning way of bouncing back from adversity, and like the frequent black-and-white line-and-wash drawings, the typeface is designed with easy legibility in mind.
An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-448-48239-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
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