This enjoyable tidbit of historical time will no doubt have kids remembering William Howard Taft, 27th president of the US, for at least one thing: his size (over 300 pounds) and his love for food, thanks to the jolly, rotund depictions of the balloon-shaped man. A young boy remembers the day in 1909 when President Taft came to his town to dedicate the new flagpole. The crowd cheered and the Firemen’s Band played when the train whooshed into the station and the portly president squeezed himself out the door. Before he reached the flagpole, he sniffed a wonderful aroma. It’s the spaghetti at Tony’s Italian Village, the boy responds and takes Taft there where he polishes off a giant plateful—but that’s not the aroma. Next, they try Big Ed’s Barbecue followed by Mrs. Wong’s Hunan Palace. Still not the right smell. Following his nose, Taft leads the parade of townspeople to Acacia Avenue, where the boy lives and his mom’s apple pie is cooling on the windowsill. Taft’s eagerness to taste the treat sends the pie sailing into the air, but the boy catches it, saves the day and the pie for the president to eat. Though fictional, the story could have happened, as two paragraphs on the back of the title page provide context and profile Taft. The colorful, playful illustrations capture the energy of the comical situation and effective double-page spreads are backdrops of small-town life with Taft’s figure dominating the pages surrounded by round-faced, rosy-cheeked people. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-525-46887-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your dreads! Isadora once again plies her hand using colorful, textured collages to depict her fourth fairy tale relocated to Africa. The narrative follows the basic story line: Taken by an evil sorceress at birth, Rapunzel is imprisoned in a tower; Rapunzel and the prince “get married” in the tower and she gets pregnant. The sorceress cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and tricks the prince, who throws himself from the tower and is blinded by thorns. The terse ending states: “The prince led Rapunzel and their twins to his kingdom, where they were received with great joy and lived happily every after.” Facial features, clothing, dreadlocks, vultures and the prince riding a zebra convey a generic African setting, but at times, the mixture of patterns and textures obfuscates the scenes. The textile and grain characteristic of the hewn art lacks the elegant romance of Zelinksy’s Caldecott version. Not a first purchase, but useful in comparing renditions to incorporate a multicultural aspect. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-24772-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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