This “first day at a new school” tale doesn’t ring true. Newly arrived from Frollop II, blue-skinned George tapes a nose to his face in an effort to look more like his human classmates—but as he has persistent problems telling up from down, or keeping himself from turning into a tomato, he’s convinced everyone’s laughing up their sleeves. “They weren’t,” Wilson earnestly avers, even making George the recipient of reassuring peer hugs and kisses—but his cluelessness is so exaggerated that readers are far more likely to ridicule him than sympathize. His parents only make it worse; on the evening that George triumphs as the Moon in the school play, his mother comes with teabags dangling from her ears beneath toothbrush hair sticks, and his father glues on a lettuce leaf mustache. They draw barely a glance from others in the audience. Many stories that celebrate physical or cultural differences also teach tolerance, from Rosemary Wells’s conventional Yoko (1998) to Sam Swopes’s circus-like Araboolies of Liberty Street, illustrated by Barry Root (1989). This is so over-the-top that it may well make such differences easier to deride. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-58246-063-9
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Tricycle
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0792-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
Nolen and Nelson offer a smaller, but no less gifted counterpart to Big Jabe (2000) in this new tall tale. Shortly after being born one stormy night, Rose thanks her parents, picks a name, and gathers lightning into a ball—all of which is only a harbinger of feats to come. Decked out in full cowboy gear and oozing self-confidence from every pore, Rose cuts a diminutive, but heroic figure in Nelson’s big, broad Western scenes. Though she carries a twisted iron rod as dark as her skin and ropes clouds with fencing wire, Rose overcomes her greatest challenge—a pair of rampaging twisters—not with strength, but with a lullaby her parents sang. After turning tornadoes into much-needed rain clouds, Rose rides away, “that mighty, mighty song pressing on the bull’s-eye that was set at the center of her heart.” Throughout, she shows a reflective bent that gives her more dimension than most tall-tale heroes: a doff of the Stetson to her and her creators. (author’s note) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-15-216472-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Whistle/Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003
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