One of the Grimms' more eccentric tales receives the outlandish attention of Goloshapov (The Six Servants, 1996, etc.), whose ominous illustrations give the story its due. The tailor of the title starts to entertain visions of his heroism after he swats seven flies dead in a single swipe. So smitten by this act is he that he sews a belt to commemorate the event, stitched with the words ``Seven at a blow!'' The tailor sets out to seek his fortune, conquering one brutish character after another—giant louts, vicious animals, conniving royalty—through cleverness and luck. When he is made king, it seems only natural. The tailor's goofy countenance belies his instinct for survival; the giants are massive dimwits with lantern jaws—ideal as foes. The rest of the artwork is equally full of character: a unicorn with a devilish horn, a bewhiskered boar. The atmosphere is perfect, but Goloshapov finds so many sinister landscapes and backdrops for the tailor's successes that the type—running across veins of blood-red or along dark, scumbled textures—is occasionally difficult to read, making the text more of an afterthought than an essential component of the page. (Picture book/folklore. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 15, 1997
ISBN: 1-55858-634-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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