So visit the Karkonosze Castle or the Wieliczka salt mine or the banished city of Wineta—you may be challenged, but you will...
A gratifying and unusual collection of folktales from Poland.
There are a number of good stock characters in these pages: beautiful princesses who get themselves into trouble, warty-nosed ogres (“His spine was crooked as a banana, his nose was a monstrous protrusion of fugal shapes, his eyes small, dark, and beady…”), buffoons who overstep themselves or commit one-too-many deadly sins. There are also talking trees, dark forests, miraculous springs and enough monsters and temptations to sink a raft of righteous souls. The tales are told by Monte in an unwavering voice, with portent enough to keep an audience listening close, and Hess’ artwork has the right spidery look and sinister atmosphere. What makes these tales unusual is that they are not tidied up, but are left open ended. Both the good guys and the bad guys have their dark sides, and the bad guys can have sympathetic traits. The moral of the tale isn’t simply stated, and readers will have to dig a little, and some of the imagery—like the goats butting their heads high in the tower—will have them scratching their heads. That the locales are ancient and real gives the whole collection added wallop.
So visit the Karkonosze Castle or the Wieliczka salt mine or the banished city of Wineta—you may be challenged, but you will not be disappointed. (Folktales. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-84780-164-7
Page Count: 116
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
Though usually cast as the trickster, Coyote is more victim than victimizer, making this a nice complement to other Coyote...
Two republished tales by a Greco-Cherokee author feature both folkloric and modern elements as well as new illustrations.
One of the two has never been offered south of the (Canadian) border. In “Coyote Sings to the Moon,” the doo-wop hymn sung nightly by Old Woman and all the animals except tone-deaf Coyote isn’t enough to keep Moon from hiding out at the bottom of the lake—until she is finally driven forth by Coyote’s awful wailing. She has been trying to return to the lake ever since, but that piercing howl keeps her in the sky. In “Coyote’s New Suit” he is schooled in trickery by Raven, who convinces him to steal the pelts of all the other animals while they’re bathing, sends the bare animals to take clothes from the humans’ clothesline, and then sets the stage for a ruckus by suggesting that Coyote could make space in his overcrowded closet by having a yard sale. No violence ensues, but from then to now humans and animals have not spoken to one another. In Eggenschwiler’s monochrome scenes Coyote and the rest stand on hind legs and (when stripped bare) sport human limbs. Old Woman might be Native American; the only other completely human figure is a pale-skinned girl.
Though usually cast as the trickster, Coyote is more victim than victimizer, making this a nice complement to other Coyote tales. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-55498-833-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Starting with a lonely slice of pizza pictured on the cover and the first page, Thornhill launches into a wide-ranging study of the history and culture of food—where it comes from, how to eat it and what our food industries are doing to the planet. It’s a lot to hang on that slice of pizza, but there are plenty of interesting tidbits here, from Clarence Birdseye’s experiments with frozen food to how mad cow disease causes the brain to turn spongy to industrial food production and global warming. Unfortunately, the volume is designed like a bad high-school yearbook. Most pages are laid out in text boxes, each containing a paragraph on a discrete topic, but with little in the way of an organizing theme to tie together the content of the page or spread. Too many colors, too much jumbled-together information and total reliance on snippets of information make this a book for young readers more interested in browsing than reading. Kids at the upper edge of the book's range would be better served by Richie Chevat's adaptation of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma (2009). (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-897349-96-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Maple Tree Press
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2010
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