A handsome volume offering conversation starters, writing prompts, or thoughtful browsing pleasure.
The prolific German picture-book creator here fills nearly 200 pages with contemplative questions—and corresponding images.
While some spreads pair a single thought and illustration in a verso/recto pattern, other ideas are examined over several pages. The book opens and concludes with children on chairs, first musing about growing up, later dreaming; also near the end are youth on a tightrope (acknowledging fear) and swing (aiming high). Some questions deal with the everyday, tangible, or familiar realm: “What if the winter never ends?”; “Why are they so mean to me?” Others are more existential: “When somebody is very old and dies, / and a tree grows out of his grave, / is he then the tree?” Teckentrup maintains interest with ever changing page designs punctuated with white space. Her beautifully textured, layered compositions are created by scanning and digitally composing art that has been printed and painted by hand. While the palette changes with the mood, the art is tonally consistent, lending an overall unity. Skin tones range from realistic (brown) to the fantastic (blue or decorated, i.e., a starlit silhouette). The variety of questions ensures that a wide swath of reflective readers will find something to ponder, whether it is “Will he like me?” as subsequent pages show two (possibly) boys getting closer to kissing or the rhetorical “Do birds like to fly?”
A handsome volume offering conversation starters, writing prompts, or thoughtful browsing pleasure. (Picture book. 6-adult)Pub Date: April 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-3-7913-7376-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Prestel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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