The strong offering of a bittersweet new folk tale with striking illustrations.
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
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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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