Turner (Shaker Hearts, 1997, etc.) offers a splendid tale of the pioneering spirit. Traveling west from Kentucky to Oregon in the 1800s, three children keep a journal of their thoughts, feelings, and events along the way. These brief poetic passages capture in two or three paragraphs the hardship, fears, longings, joys, adventures, and sorrows of that journey west. Amanda, the oldest, teeters on the edge of adulthood, and wishes for ``a land where I could run and shout with no one to tell me I was not a lady.'' Lonnie, the older son, dreams of ``soil as deep as a man is tall,'' and a place to plant his peach orchard. Caleb, the youngest, is so fired up with fear that he reports that he looks like a peddler with charms around his neck to ward off evil: ``rabbit's foot for water, snakeskin for woods, and a dead man's fingernail to keep off the horse-stealing, ma-hurting wild men.'' Along the way a baby is born, their dog dies, they find an orphan, buy an abused horse, and nearly lose a child to cholera. They come at last to the place of their new beginning. The vivid writing is ideal for savoring at story hours; the appealing illustrations—sometimes intrusively literal, more often a poetic match to the text—would also work well in a group setting. (Picture book. 8-10)
Pub Date: May 11, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-024432-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
In these 12 retellings, the Immortals come across as unusually benign. Dionysius at first suggests to King Midas that he give his excess wealth to the poor, for instance; the troubles that Pandora releases are originally imprisoned in the box by Prometheus’s brother Epimetheus out of compassion for humankind; and it’s Persephone herself who begs for a compromise that will allow her to stay with her beloved Hades for six months out of every year. Kimmel relates each tale in easy, natural-sounding language. And even though his Andromeda looks more Celtic than Ethiopian (as the oldest versions of the story have it), Montserrat’s figures combine appropriate monumentality with an appealing expressiveness. The stories are all familiar and available in more comprehensive collections, but the colorful illustrations and spacious page design make this a good choice for shared reading. (foreword) (Nonfiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4169-1534-8
Page Count: 112
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2007
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