Nel, author of Dr. Seuss: American Icon, delivers a meticulously researched and scrupulously attributed commentary on Seuss’s revolutionary 1957 beginning reader, The Cat in the Hat, its sequel, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, and three short published pieces. Nel’s introduction uncovers publishing histories, reviews, translations, adaptations (as animated television cartoons, for example) and tributes to Seuss and his Cat (including parade floats, commemorative postage stamps and a memorial sculpture). Nel recounts details of the Cat’s birth: Seuss, exhorted in print by John Hersey to supplant the boring primers of the day with books that made learning to read fun, accepted the challenge. Saddled with a stipulated word count (the first Cat has 236) and a confounding list of permitted words, Seuss’s anticipated lark took a year and a half to complete. Nel’s material most compels when providing both visual and literary proof of Seuss’s creative process, documenting recurring motifs from his work in advertising and political cartooning and revealing cultural influences ranging from the Katzenjammer Kids (think Thing One and Thing Two) to the atomic bomb (on the cataclysmically cleansing Voom in the second Cat). The fact-packed verbiage—seeming at times a gaudy inverse to Seuss’s musically spare texts—discusses everything from the debate as to whether the Little Cats in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back are fractals, to the probability, based on “an unscientific sample of shoe prices” in 1957, that Dad’s $10 shoes “would have been moderately priced dress shoes.” While the aftermatter is impressively rich, photos and other visual documents are captioned only in the introduction—bound to cause all but the most casual reader to rue the lack of an index. The handsome, double-column layout of the annotations contrasts with the presentation of the Seuss texts, whose double spreads appear on right-hand pages, clipped slightly by the gutter. Revelatory, exhaustive and, occasionally, exhausting.
Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-375-83369-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Golden Books/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An authentic and moving time capsule of middle school angst, trauma, and joy.
Through the author’s own childhood diary entries, a seventh grader details her inner life before and after 9/11.
Alyssa’s diary entries start in September 2000, in the first week of her seventh grade year. She’s 11 and dealing with typical preteen concerns—popularity and anxiety about grades—along with other things more particular to her own life. She’s shuffling between Queens and Manhattan to share time between her divorced parents and struggling with thick facial hair and classmates who make her feel like she’s “not a whole person” due to her mixed White and Puerto Rican heritage. Alyssa is endlessly earnest and awkward as she works up the courage to talk to her crush, Alejandro; gushes about her dreams of becoming a shoe designer; and tries to solve her burgeoning unibrow problem. The diaries also have a darker side, as a sense of impending doom builds as the entries approach 9/11, especially because Alyssa’s father works in finance in the World Trade Center. As a number of the diary entries are taken directly from the author’s originals, they effortlessly capture the loud, confusing feelings middle school brings out. The artwork, in its muted but effective periwinkle tones, lends a satisfying layer to the diary’s accessible and delightful format.
An authentic and moving time capsule of middle school angst, trauma, and joy. (author's note) (Graphic memoir. 8-13)Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-77427-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
"From the beginning the baby was a disappointment to her mother," Cooney (The Story of Christmas, 1995, etc.) begins in this biography of Eleanor Roosevelt. She is a plain child, timid and serious; it is clear that only a few people loved her. After her parents die, she is cared for in the luxurious homes of wealthy relatives, but does not find acceptance until she arrives in a British boarding school, where she thrives on the attention of the headmistress, who guides, teaches, and inspires her. Cooney does not gloss over the girl's misery and disappointments; she also shows the rare happy times and sows the seeds of Eleanor's future work. The illustrations of house interiors often depict Eleanor as an isolated, lonely figure, her indistinct face and hollow eyes watching from a distance the human interactions she does not yet enjoy. Paintings reveal the action of a steamship collision; the hectic activity of a park full of children and their governesses; a night full of stars portending the girl's luminous future. The image of plain Eleanor being fitted with her first beautiful dress is an indelible one. Readers will be moved by the unfairness of her early life and rejoice when she finds her place in the world. An author's note supplies other relevant information. (Picture book/biography. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-670-86159-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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