by Shaun Brennan illustrated by Margaux Meganck ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 14, 2013
The strong offering of a bittersweet new folk tale with striking illustrations.
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Debut writer Brennan and illustrator Meganck create a touching folk story about the transformative powers of love.
Despite his talents, a skilled woodsman is poor because his son is often very sick, and the family must spend all the woodsman’s earnings on medicine. To solve their financial problems, the woodsman travels into the center of the forest to find and cut down a heart tree, a rare tree that produces expensive wood. When the woodsman recognizes that the heart tree is the home of a dryad, he realizes he cannot cut it down; instead, they agree that the woodsman can carve the dryad’s tree as living art. When the woodsman returns home, his son insists that the woodsman carve the likeness of the dryad and that, despite his illness, he come along on the journey to the heart tree. When they arrive at the heart tree, the dryad, who doesn’t have the energy to show herself, is surprised to discover that the son can see her without effort. The son works for his father, describing the dryad’s beauty, all the while falling in love with her. As the woodsman’s work draws to completion, the son weakens and dies—but when his father buries him, a heart tree grows over the grave, and the son and the dryad are united. Brennan’s prose is by turns simple and poetic: “When they arrived at the glade and stood before the tree, the Son saw framed within the Heart Tree a glowing woman beautiful to behold, with leaves and flowers woven into her hair. She looked at him with acorn-brown eyes that were streaked with green, blue, and purple.” Though the word count is high for a picture book, grade school readers will be drawn in by the fairy-tale qualities of the writing and Meganck’s beautiful illustrations, with their soft palette and Polar Express–like allure. Meganck deftly portrays the connection between the dryad and her tree by showing parts of the dryad as translucent, and her depiction of the dryad’s grief at the death of the son might summon tears.
The strong offering of a bittersweet new folk tale with striking illustrations.Pub Date: March 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-1939792006
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Shaun Brennan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Josh Schneider & illustrated by Josh Schneider ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2011
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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by Amy Krouse Rosenthal ; illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2015
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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