Wolkstein (Glass Mountain, 1999, etc.) elaborates on Elphinstone Dayrell’s terse rendition of the West African “Why the Sun and Moon Live in the Sky,” by giving Moon a larger, more active part. When in his wanderings Sun meets Ocean, Sun’s wife, Moon, suggests that he invite her to visit—but despite precautions, Sun and Moon are driven out of their home and into the sky by Ocean’s huge, teeming presence. In the best-known modern version of the tale, Blair Lent’s Caldecott Honor–winning pictures (1968) depict the figures as tribespeople wearing stylized masks and placed into sparely detailed settings. Here the shining spheres of Sun and Moon actually sit atop graceful bodies clad in long, simple robes, Ocean flows into their bamboo dwelling over peaceful, carefully kept gardens, and multiple layers of thinly applied oil paint add richly modulated light and color to every illustration. The paintings have been laid over a clay base that mimics a sandy beach with bits of shell pressed into it, a lovely background for the theme. While this is not a radical re-envisioning, the dusty tale has been given a fresh, elegant, new dress. (Picture book/folktale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-201774-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Gulliver/Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001
A lackluster collection of verse enlivened by a few bright spots.
Poems on various topics by the actor/screenwriter and his kids.
In collaboration with his now-grown children—particularly daughter Erin, who adds gently humorous vignettes and spot art to each entry—Bob Odenkirk, best known for his roles in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, dishes up a poetic hodgepodge that is notably loose jointed in the meter and rhyme departments. The story also too often veers from child-friendly subjects (bedtime-delaying tactics, sympathy for a dog with the zoomies) to writerly whines (“The be-all and end-all of perfection in scribbling, / no matter and no mind to any critical quibbling”). Some of the less-than-compelling lines describe how a “plane ride is an irony / with a strange and wondrous duplicity.” A few gems are buried in the bunch, however, like the comforting words offered to a bedroom monster and a frightened invisible friend, not to mention an invitation from little Willy Whimble, who lives in a tuna can but has a heart as “big as can be. / Come inside, / stay for dinner. / I’ll roast us a pea!” They’re hard to find, though. Notwithstanding nods to Calef Brown, Shel Silverstein, and other gifted wordsmiths in the acknowledgments, the wordplay in general is as artificial as much of the writing: “I scratched, then I scrutched / and skrappled away, / scritching my itch with great / pan-a-ché…” Human figures are light-skinned throughout.
A lackluster collection of verse enlivened by a few bright spots. (Poetry. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780316438506
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Iffy art cramps this 25th-anniversary reissue of the joyful title poem from Greenfield’s first collection (1978), illustrated by the Dillons. As timeless as ever, the poem celebrates everything a child loves, from kissing Mama’s warm, soft arm to listening to a cousin from the South, “ ’cause every word he says / just kind of slides out of his mouth.” “I love a lot of things / a whole lot of things,” the narrator concludes, “And honey, / I love ME, too.” The African-American child in the pictures sports an updated hairstyle and a big, infectious grin—but even younger viewers will notice that the spray of cool water that supposedly “stings my stomach” isn’t aimed there, and that a comforter on the child’s bed changes patterns between pages. More problematic, though, is a dropped doll that suddenly acquires a horrified expression that makes it look disturbingly like a live baby, and the cutesy winged fairy that hovers over the sleeping child in the final scene. The poem deserves better. (Picture book/poetry. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-009123-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
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