The tales of Wilhelm Hauff (18021827)—almost unknown in the U.S.—belong on every child's shelf. Shepard retells ``The Caliph Stork,'' a stylized imitation of the Arabian Nights that has become a part of Middle Eastern folklore. A merchant sells the Calif[sic] of Baghdad a magic snuffbox, which contains a powder that transforms him and his vizier into storks. But the magic word that is to turn them back into humans has no effect, and they find themselves trapped in their new forms. Wandering through the woods, the two storks meet a woodpecker who tells them that she is a princess put under the spell by a sorcerer. When they follow her to the sorcerer's hide-out, they discover that he is none other than the merchant who sold them the snuffbox. They overhear him bragging about his trick, whereupon he reveals the real magic word that will transform them. The Gothic overtones of Hauff's KunstmÑrchen have been removed in Shepard's simplified version (for example, in the original, the storks more tragically forget the magic word), but the story still works. In his first work, Dianov, with rich, ornately three- dimensional watercolors, displays his sensitivity to the oriental charms of the tale, paying as much attention to the details of costume and architecture as to the characters themselves. Everything has a cartoon-like plasticity, or unrealness; his colorful pictures, full of beards, turbans, and minarets, look as if they were made out of candy. (Picture book/folklore. 5-7)
Pub Date: April 24, 1995
ISBN: 0-395-65377-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip. The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface. Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
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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