Cooper (Ballpark, 1998, etc.) once again takes a familiar sight and infuses it with a squiggly magic as he ebulliently illustrates how a vacant lot is transformed by construction. The architect comes with her blueprints to a lot full of trash and weeds. A backhoe follows, and big trucks delivering materials and digging out stuff. Then the workers come, with mortar that looks like “a big tub of oatmeal” and concrete that “smells like chalk.” They fetch and carry and measure things off, and they eat fried chicken and call home. Cooper piles on numerous small images of workers hammering and hauling toilets and wedging insulation, often opposite a full-page image of the building as it slowly takes form and shape, filling the vacant lot. The lines of text come at right angles and bend around machinery as Cooper tells about a worker “with hands and arms so big they could juggle trucks” and another “with two braids” who repeats a joke to her co-worker, who repeats it to the worker above him. The pictures are fascinating and informative; readers will come away with a real understanding of how a building comes into existence. (Picture book. 4-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-16494-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-688-13166-2 King Midas And The Golden Touch ($16.00; PLB $15.63; Apr.; 32 pp.; 0-688-13165-4; PLB 0-688-13166-2): The familiar tale of King Midas gets the golden touch in the hands of Craft and Craft (Cupid and Psyche, 1996). The author takes her inspiration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s retelling, capturing the essence of the tale with the use of pithy dialogue and colorful description. Enchanting in their own right, the illustrations summon the Middle Ages as a setting, and incorporate colors so lavish that when they are lost to the uniform gold spurred by King Midas’s touch, the point of the story is further burnished. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-13165-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
Lunge-Larsen and Preus debut with this story of a flower that blooms for the first time to commemorate the uncommon courage of a girl who saves her people from illness. The girl, an Ojibwe of the northern woodlands, knows she must journey to the next village to get the healing herb, mash-ki- ki, for her people, who have all fallen ill. After lining her moccasins with rabbit fur, she braves a raging snowstorm and crosses a dark frozen lake to reach the village. Then, rather than wait for morning, she sets out for home while the villagers sleep. When she loses her moccasins in the deep snow, her bare feet are cut by icy shards, and bleed with every step until she reaches her home. The next spring beautiful lady slippers bloom from the place where her moccasins were lost, and from every spot her injured feet touched. Drawing on Ojibwe sources, the authors of this fluid retelling have peppered the tale with native words and have used traditional elements, e.g., giving voice to the forces of nature. The accompanying watercolors, with flowing lines, jewel tones, and decorative motifs, give stately credence to the story’s iconic aspects. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90512-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
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