Surprisingly, there isn’t a “beautiful pea-green boat[ful]” of illustrated renditions of Lear’s most famous and favorite verse, making Mortimer’s version with her signature style of handsome, whisker-realistic cat images a perfect marriage to the tale. Her delicate lines, tactile textures of feathers and fur, engaging composition and fascinating borders infused with flowers, ferns, insects and butterflies breathe life into the rhyme. Two styles of borders play off each other effectively; round insets appear like portholes while rectangular ones nicely frame a scroll-like message with text. Other illustrated depictions are less elegant: Hilary Knight’s and Michael Hague’s are typically wry and darkly fanciful; Jan Brett also relies on brightly colored borders, but Mortimer’s palette is richer, more refined and dreamy in atmosphere. Like the title characters, the art walks “hand in hand” with the 22-line poetic romance as this delightfully charming creation does, indeed, “dance by the light of the moon.” (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)
Pub Date: July 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-027228-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lushly illustrated homage to librarians who provide a welcome and a home away from home for all who enter.
A love letter to libraries.
A Black child, with hair in two puffballs tied with yellow ribbons, a blue dress with a Peter Pan collar, and black patent leather Mary Janes, helps Grandmother with the housework, then, at Grandmother’s suggestion, heads to the library. The child’s eagerness to go, with two books under an arm and one in their hand, suggests that this is a favorite destination. The books’ wordless covers emphasize their endless possibilities. The protagonist’s description of the library makes clear that they are always free to be themselves there—whether they feel happy or sad, whether they’re reading mysteries or recipes, and whether they feel “quick and smart” or “contained and cautious.” Robinson’s vibrant, carefully composed digital illustrations, with bright colors that invite readers in and textures and patterns in every image, effectively capture the protagonist’s passion for reading and appreciation for a space where they feel accepted regardless of disposition. In her author’s note, Giovanni states that she spent summers visiting her grandmother in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she went to the Carnegie Branch of the Lawson McGhee Library. She expresses gratitude for Mrs. Long, the librarian, who often traveled to the main library to get books that Giovanni could not find in their segregated branch. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A lushly illustrated homage to librarians who provide a welcome and a home away from home for all who enter. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-358-38765-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Versify/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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