Graphite wizardry notwithstanding, a showcase or keepsake with more personal than general meaning.
In a series of atmospheric tableaux, the distinguished Canadian author/illustrator portrays mementos and images from visits to each province and territory over his long career.
U.S. and perhaps even Canadian children are going to need the descriptive notes he tacks on at the end, because without labels, the folk dolls, hand-carved animals, and other small items on display have no context beyond an occasional place name. (This lack really comes home to roost with the Yukon spread’s ordinary-looking tobacco tin—which contains, Wallace assures us, the “infamous ingredient” in a “sourtoe cocktail.”) Signaling that the “cabinet” is at least partly imaginary, shelves turn into landscapes or assemblages of images as the survey progresses, and Wallace caps his notes with a self-portrait that makes the notion explicit. Finally, though the results are technically masterful, pencil may not have been the best choice for the art, as a silhouette representing the author’s well-traveled red sneakers and a red Chinese money envelope are both monochrome, and he makes much of a fan letter decorated with a rainbow that, here, is just a set of barely distinguishable gray stripes.
Graphite wizardry notwithstanding, a showcase or keepsake with more personal than general meaning. (introduction) (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-55498-922-5
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Blandly laudatory.
The iconic animator introduces young readers to each “happy place” in his life.
The tally begins with his childhood home in Marceline, Missouri, and climaxes with Disneyland (carefully designed to be “the happiest place on Earth”), but the account really centers on finding his true happy place, not on a map but in drawing. In sketching out his early flubs and later rocket to the top, the fictive narrator gives Ub Iwerks and other Disney studio workers a nod (leaving his labor disputes with them unmentioned) and squeezes in quick references to his animated films, from Steamboat Willie to Winnie the Pooh (sans Fantasia and Song of the South). Eliopoulos incorporates stills from the films into his cartoon illustrations and, characteristically for this series, depicts Disney as a caricature, trademark mustache in place on outsized head even in childhood years and child sized even as an adult. Human figures default to white, with occasional people of color in crowd scenes and (ahistorically) in the animation studio. One unidentified animator builds up the role-modeling with an observation that Walt and Mickey were really the same (“Both fearless; both resourceful”). An assertion toward the end—“So when do you stop being a child? When you stop dreaming”—muddles the overall follow-your-bliss message. A timeline to the EPCOT Center’s 1982 opening offers photos of the man with select associates, rodent and otherwise. An additional series entry, I Am Marie Curie, publishes simultaneously, featuring a gowned, toddler-sized version of the groundbreaking physicist accepting her two Nobel prizes.
Blandly laudatory. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2875-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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