Pleasant diversions for younger talespinners.
A German surrealist debuts on this side of the Atlantic with a set of independent scenes that will give wings to flights of imagination.
Small figures of dressed animals, animated mushrooms and the occasional gnome stroll or scuttle through indoor and outdoor settings over word pairings that are sometimes opposites and other times not (quite): “Scared – Brave,” “Cranky – Kind,” “Tricky – Truthful.” A teeter-totter with an elephant on one end and a wobbly-looking pyramid of smaller creatures on the other illustrates alone/together; a “Brave” frog guitarist serenades an audience of attentive veggies while a “Scared” bunny cellist suffers an attack of stage fright; a table of monkeys going “Wild” in a restaurant as a family of “Polite” pigs studiously looks away. These central scenarios can be seen in a glance, but further examination reveals smaller and often more ambiguous side business that, properly, invites questions (Why do those ants have shopping bags? Is that a shark’s fin in that puddle of spilled soda?) and speculative answers. Though Muggenthaler’s art, painted with small strokes and daubs of muddy, generally low-contrast colors, is subdued, her lively imagination and tongue-in-cheek sense of humor provide a redemptive shine.
Pleasant diversions for younger talespinners. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59270-116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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