An adventurous boy disregards his grandfather’s orders to remain behind the closed garden gate when a fierce wolf is spotted in the neighborhood. When the dangerous wolf threatens Peter’s wildlife friends in the meadow, he succeeds in tricking and capturing it with the help of a small bird. The happy ending shows the hunters, Peter and Grandfather, proudly leading the wolf to the zoo. The story is best known as the narrative to Prokofiev’s symphony written for children, which introduces orchestral instruments through musical themes that represented each character. To those already familiar with the music, it may reverberate in their heads as they read the text. For those unfamiliar with the music, an afterword includes the musical notation and instrumentation of the themes and a very brief biography of Prokofiev. Peter’s story stands alone, illustrated with Vagin’s (The Enormous Carrot, 1998, etc.) pencil and watercolor drawings. Clothing, tableware, architecture, and Peter’s toys represent the pre-Revolutionary Russia of Prokofiev’s music and portray an authentic Russian folk quality. Each action-filled page depicts the personalities of the characters and their realistic actions: the cat hunches close to the ground as she stalks the bird; the wolf licks his lips in anticipation of a tasty meal; the duck’s feathers fly as he tries to run before the wolf swallows him whole. The exciting illustrations give another context to a modern folktale than can co-exist with the symphony that first made it famous. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-590-38608-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
Pedestrian.
Mr. Brown can’t help with farm chores because his shoes are missing—a common occurrence in his household and likely in many readers’ as well.
Children will be delighted that the titular Mr. Brown is in fact a child. After Mr. Brown looks in his closet and sorts through his other family members’ shoes with no luck, his father and his siblings help him search the farm. Eventually—after colorful pages that enable readers to spot footwear hiding—the family gives up on their hunt, and Mr. Brown asks to be carried around for the chores. He rides on his father’s shoulders as Papa gets his work done, as seen on a double-page spread of vignettes. The resolution is more of a lesson for the adult readers than for children, a saccharine moment where father and son express their joy that the missing shoes gave them the opportunity for togetherness—with advice for other parents to appreciate those fleeting moments themselves. Though the art is bright and cheerful, taking advantage of the setting, it occasionally is misaligned with the text (for example, the text states that Mr. Brown is wearing his favorite green shirt while the illustration is of a shirt with wide stripes of white and teal blue, which could confuse readers at the point where they’re trying to figure out which family member is Mr. Brown). The family is light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Pedestrian. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5460-0389-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: WorthyKids/Ideals
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Teachers looking for a new way to start off the school year will eat this one up.
In Murray’s children’s debut, when a gingerbread man made by schoolchildren gets left behind at recess, he decides he has to find his class: “I’ll run and I’ll run, / As fast as I can. / I can catch them! I’m their / Gingerbread Man!”
And so begins his rollicking rhyming adventure as he runs, limps, slides and skips his way through the school, guided on his way by the friendly teachers he meets. Flattened by a volleyball near the gym, he gets his broken toe fixed by the kindly nurse and then slides down the railing into the art teacher’s lunch. Then it’s off to the principal’s office, where he takes a spin in her chair before she arrives. “The children you mentioned just left you to cool. / They’re hanging these posters of you through the school.” The principal takes him back to the classroom, where the children all welcome him back. The book’s comic-book layout suits the elementary-school tour that this is, while Lowery’s cartoon artwork fits the folktale theme. Created with pencil, screen printing and digital color, the simple illustrations give preschoolers a taste of what school will be like. While the Gingerbread Man is wonderfully expressive, though, the rather cookie-cutter teachers could use a little more life.
Teachers looking for a new way to start off the school year will eat this one up. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25052-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
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