In a lightly buffed up version of a Dan tale first offered in their Why Leopard Has Spots (1998), a Liberian storyteller and his co-writer gently tweak a lazy trickster. Spider repeatedly refuses to join his neighbors as they band together to clear, plant and weed the collective farm. Nonetheless, he later goes out to claim a share of the harvest to supplement his diet of plain rice—and the vegetables themselves indignantly drive him away: “You didn’t help make the farm. Go away!” In playful, semi-abstract illustrations, stylized figures float across monochrome backgrounds. The sinuous, deep black spider’s fellow villagers are all animals decked out in bright colors and patterns (a blue elephant, a checkerboard crocodile), and Paschkis gives the garden vegetables large, comically offended expressions. There’s no explicit moral, but the point’s not going to escape many readers. A good choice for group sharing—along with, say, Angela Shelf Medearis’s Too Much Talk (1995), illus by Stefano Vitale, or any version of “The Little Red Hen.” (source note) (Picture book/folktale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-8050-7742-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2006
Sloat collaborates with Huffman, a Yu’pik storyteller, to infuse a traditional “origins” tale with the joy of creating. Hearing the old women of her village grumble that they have only tasteless crowberries for the fall feast’s akutaq—described as “Eskimo ice cream,” though the recipe at the end includes mixing in shredded fish and lard—young Anana carefully fashions three dolls, then sings and dances them to life. Away they bound, to cover the hills with cranberries, blueberries, and salmonberries. Sloat dresses her smiling figures in mixes of furs and brightly patterned garb, and sends them tumbling exuberantly through grassy tundra scenes as wildlife large and small gathers to look on. Despite obtrusively inserted pronunciations for Yu’pik words in the text, young readers will be captivated by the action, and by Anana’s infectious delight. (Picture book/folktale. 6-8)
Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-88240-575-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your dreads! Isadora once again plies her hand using colorful, textured collages to depict her fourth fairy tale relocated to Africa. The narrative follows the basic story line: Taken by an evil sorceress at birth, Rapunzel is imprisoned in a tower; Rapunzel and the prince “get married” in the tower and she gets pregnant. The sorceress cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and tricks the prince, who throws himself from the tower and is blinded by thorns. The terse ending states: “The prince led Rapunzel and their twins to his kingdom, where they were received with great joy and lived happily every after.” Facial features, clothing, dreadlocks, vultures and the prince riding a zebra convey a generic African setting, but at times, the mixture of patterns and textures obfuscates the scenes. The textile and grain characteristic of the hewn art lacks the elegant romance of Zelinksy’s Caldecott version. Not a first purchase, but useful in comparing renditions to incorporate a multicultural aspect. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-24772-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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