If ever there was a god of fun, here he is…no mythtake. .
The goat-footed god of “noise and confusion” (also herds and herders) offers up giddy versions of his best known pranks and exploits.
Starting from ancient sources but embellishing them considerably, Gerstein sends his irrepressible narrator bounding through cartoon scenes of his own birth to Hermes and an unnamed mother—both golden-haired—and early stay atop Mount Olympus. Quickly wearing out his welcome there, Pan settles in rustic Arcadia, where, in a rare moment of irritation sparked by an ant’s sneeze, he invents “panic” with a bellow that extends in electric colors over three full pages. He then goes on to marry Echo after several false starts, help Zeus settle the monster Typhon, lose a music battle to Apollo, help the Greeks win at Marathon, and fake everyone by announcing his own death. Along with making Typhon female, lining up the retired gods in modern dress for a family photo “somewhere in Greece—or is it Canada?” and other tweaks, the author tucks in the story of how Apollo changed King Midas’ ears to those of a jackass (“a mean trick, but it sure was funny”) and closes with a final frazzling “YEEEAAAHOOOO!” from the hairy trickster in an unidentified city park.
If ever there was a god of fun, here he is…no mythtake. . (afterword, bibliography) (Picture book/mythology. 7-11)Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62672-035-0
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...
This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.
Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
It’s not the first time old Ben has paid our times a call, but it’s funny and free-spirited, with an informational load that...
Antics both instructive and embarrassing ensue after a mysterious package left on their doorstep brings a Founding Father into the lives of two modern children.
Summoned somehow by what looks for all the world like an old-time crystal radio set, Ben Franklin turns out to be an amiable sort. He is immediately taken in hand by 7-year-old Olive for a tour of modern wonders—early versions of which many, from electrical appliances in the kitchen to the Illinois town’s public library and fire department, he justly lays claim to inventing. Meanwhile big brother Nolan, 10, tags along, frantic to return him to his own era before either their divorced mom or snoopy classmate Tommy Tuttle sees him. Fleming, author of Ben Franklin’s Almanac (2003) (and also, not uncoincidentally considering the final scene of this outing, Our Eleanor, 2005), mixes history with humor as the great man dispenses aphorisms and reminiscences through diverse misadventures, all of which end well, before vanishing at last. Following a closing, sequel-cueing kicker (see above) she then separates facts from fancies in closing notes, with print and online leads to more of the former. To go with spot illustrations of the evidently all-white cast throughout the narrative, Fearing incorporates change-of-pace sets of sequential panels for Franklin’s biographical and scientific anecdotes. Final illustrations not seen.
It’s not the first time old Ben has paid our times a call, but it’s funny and free-spirited, with an informational load that adds flavor without weight. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-93406-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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