Rhymes and colored pictures, that fold open to reveal an extension of the original scene, give the young a provocative meeting with big top characters. Each verse is something to guess at- what will Kiki the clown do, who will walk the tight-rope and so forth. The author's pictures are in the agreeably loose style of the illustrations for the Curious George books. Cloth spine with stapled pages. Not too firm.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1956
ISBN: 0395906954
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1956
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sensitive, passionate story told from an intriguing point of view.
An imaginative re-creation of the life of one of the first coyotes to inhabit Maine.
In the late 1960s, coyotes from Canada began to migrate eastward, expanding their range. Vistein, a carnivore biologist, tells the story of one of these early migrants from the coyote’s point of view and asks readers to consider coyotes as “intelligent, sentient beings” able to experience “fear, joy, affection, loss, grief, puzzlement, and acceptance but never anger.” Vistein’s writing is impassioned and poetic as she tells of the female Coyote who travels east—facing danger from traps, traffic, guns, and dogs—to finally find a refuge in Baxter State Park. At times Vistein’s prose hits the purple end of the spectrum, and her words occasionally repeat themselves, but her sincerity in relating the beauty and cyclic nature of the natural world, and the vibrancy of those who inhabit it, is convincing. When Coyote finds a trapped coyote, she helps him to free himself (he chews off his paw). They become mates and, as seasons and years pass, raise four litters of pups. Readers learn about the complex social structure of coyotes (previous years’ siblings help out) and that life as a wild creature is often tragic—though Vistein balances the harshness of death with a wider, natural-order-of-things perspective.
A sensitive, passionate story told from an intriguing point of view. (author's note, further reading) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-88448-466-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
A quiet discovery that home is best.
Falgu, an Indian farmer, is trying to escape his noisy farm.
He hitches his oxen to his cart and starts off “to find silence” but soon picks up passengers who create different kinds of sounds. An old man gets on and plays his drum: “dum-dum.” A snake charmer plays “phee-phee” on his pipe. A troupe of dancers tap their feet: “tap-tap-tap.” When they all finally alight, Farmer Falgu “listened to the quiet night.” He recognizes the small nocturnal sounds, “crickets chirping, frogs croaking, the wind whispering,” and finally understands that his animals are noisy because they are happy. The terse onomatopoeic text with its sounds picked out in bold colors will keep young listeners engaged, and the pictures have a Rouault-like flavor with dark outlines and deep colors. Their focus is on Falgu and his experience, and readers hoping for a broader sense of India will not find it here; the snake charmer makes for a rather stereotypical element. This simple story of one man’s dissatisfaction with his surroundings and his emotional change and acceptance of what was once an annoyance is a common theme in picture books, recalling such works as the Caldecott Honor book It Could Always Be Worse, by Margot Zemach (1977).
A quiet discovery that home is best. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-8-1819-0311-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Karadi Tales
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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