A whimsically morose story that is elevated by its illustrations.
A sentient wooden post ponders its lonely existence.
Running alongside painted grassy hills topped with white houses and rainbow-hued trees, “there was a great river flowing all year round.…The villagers had planned to build a bridge over the river, but for some strange reason, only one wooden post was ever put up.” Elongated sentences narrate the post’s initial dreams of being surrounded by fellow wooden posts topped with happy children clad in white, with some dancing around with flutes and wings. Sadly, the post wakes up to its fate that a bridge will never be built and grows jealous of the companionship that the stars and trees enjoy nearby. Visits from an egret, a fisherman, and a shepherd boy mitigate the solitude. Yet each happy moment is accompanied by pain, with the egret sharpening its claws on the post, the fisherman singing mournfully, and the shepherd boy throwing stones at the post from the shore. Gong’s textured, moody paintings swirl with movement when a flood snatches up the shepherd boy and he’s carried “away by the strong current!” The post saves the boy and ends up uprooted from its spot, floating to an open-ended fate. Cao’s artful storytelling is compelling and contemplatively paced, but it feels unbalanced with its hyperfocus on the darkness of desolation. Human characters all appear to be Chinese.
A whimsically morose story that is elevated by its illustrations. (Picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-76036-064-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Starfish Bay
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Fans both young and formerly young will be pleased—100 percent.
Published in magazines, never seen since / Now resurrected for pleasure intense / Versified episodes numbering four / Featuring Marco, and Horton and more!
All of the entries in this follow-up to The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories (2011) involve a certain amount of sharp dealing. Horton carries a Kwuggerbug through crocodile-infested waters and up a steep mountain because “a deal is a deal”—and then is cheated out of his promised share of delicious Beezlenuts. Officer Pat heads off escalating, imagined disasters on Mulberry Street by clubbing a pesky gnat. Marco (originally met on that same Mulberry Street) concocts a baroque excuse for being late to school. In the closer, a smooth-talking Grinch (not the green sort) sells a gullible Hoobub a piece of string. In a lively introduction, uber-fan Charles D. Cohen (The Seuss, The Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss, 2002) provides publishing histories, places characters and settings in Seussian context, and offers insights into, for instance, the origin of “Grinch.” Along with predictably engaging wordplay—“He climbed. He grew dizzy. His ankles grew numb. / But he climbed and he climbed and he clum and he clum”—each tale features bright, crisply reproduced renditions of its original illustrations. Except for “The Hoobub and the Grinch,” which has been jammed into a single spread, the verses and pictures are laid out in spacious, visually appealing ways.
Fans both young and formerly young will be pleased—100 percent. (Picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-38298-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK REVIEW
An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda.
Hank Zipzer, poster boy for dyslexic middle graders everywhere, stars in a new prequel series highlighting second-grade trials and triumphs.
Hank’s hopes of playing Aqua Fly, a comic-book character, in the upcoming class play founder when, despite plenty of coaching and preparation, he freezes up during tryouts. He is not particularly comforted when his sympathetic teacher adds a nonspeaking role as a bookmark to the play just for him. Following the pattern laid down in his previous appearances as an older child, he gets plenty of help and support from understanding friends (including Ashley Wong, a new apartment-house neighbor). He even manages to turn lemons into lemonade with a quick bit of improv when Nick “the Tick” McKelty, the sneering classmate who took his preferred role, blanks on his lines during the performance. As the aforementioned bully not only chokes in the clutch and gets a demeaning nickname, but is fat, boastful and eats like a pig, the authors’ sensitivity is rather one-sided. Still, Hank has a winning way of bouncing back from adversity, and like the frequent black-and-white line-and-wash drawings, the typeface is designed with easy legibility in mind.
An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-448-48239-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
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BOOK REVIEW
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