A benign, low-key rendition with art that repays second looks.
A handsomely illustrated retelling of the classic cautionary tale, brooms and all.
Muller fleshes out Goethe’s sketchy ballad so that it follows the familiar course of Mickey Mouse’s adventure in Disney’s Fantasia but with a named and all-human cast. Having fetched up hungry and homeless at the door of kindly old sorcerer Alfred, Oliver, a young country lad, is kept busy with chores while learning how to make potions and, after some begging, a few words of magic that he promises never to use when his master is absent. When he breaks that promise and animates the brooms to fetch water, he floods the village. Alfred, returning from a sorcerer’s convention, sets all to rights and, seeing that Oliver is genuinely sorry, makes him help with the cleanup but lets him stay. Striking more conventional notes then Leo and Diane Dillons’ sumptuous art for Nancy Willard’s 1993 retelling or Ted Dewan’s science-fictional take (1998), dress and details in these finely detailed illustrations set the tale in a small, tidy, seemingly all-White Renaissance-era European village. Aside from sporting tiny heads, the busy brooms look very much like the ones in the film; a skeleton coat rack is just one of several humorous visual touches, and a climactic elevated view of villagers sloshing and playing in the muddy street has a festive Bruegel-esque air.
A benign, low-key rendition with art that repays second looks. (Picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78250-628-7
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Floris
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
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It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode.
A long-running series reaches its closing chapters.
Having, as Kline notes in her warm valedictory acknowledgements, taken 30 years to get through second and third grade, Harry Spooger is overdue to move on—but not just into fourth grade, it turns out, as his family is moving to another town as soon as the school year ends. The news leaves his best friend, narrator “Dougo,” devastated…particularly as Harry doesn’t seem all that fussed about it. With series fans in mind, the author takes Harry through a sort of last-day-of-school farewell tour. From his desk he pulls a burned hot dog and other items that featured in past episodes, says goodbye to Song Lee and other classmates, and even (for the first time ever) leads Doug and readers into his house and memento-strewn room for further reminiscing. Of course, Harry isn’t as blasé about the move as he pretends, and eyes aren’t exactly dry when he departs. But hardly is he out of sight before Doug is meeting Mohammad, a new neighbor from Syria who (along with further diversifying a cast that began as mostly white but has become increasingly multiethnic over the years) will also be starting fourth grade at summer’s end, and planning a written account of his “horrible” buddy’s exploits. Finished illustrations not seen.
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-47963-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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