Well-meant but more didactic than entertaining.
When Leo outgrows his beloved red bicycle, he sends it to Burkina Faso, where it takes on new lives.
This addition to the publisher’s CitizenKid collection follows the journey of an 18-speed bicycle from its first owner, a North American boy, to a country where bicycles are more useful than cars. Its new owner, Alisetta, can now get quickly to her fields and take sorghum and other goods to market, enriching the lives of her family. After a small disaster that renders it useless to the family, the bicycle is refurbished as an ambulance. A third owner, Haridata, brings patients to a medical clinic. The wordy narrative appears to focus on the bicycle, but perhaps because the writer tries to include as many details as possible about life in Burkina Faso, her story never comes alive. Each spread includes a summary line, which would be useful for read-alouds were it not printed nearly invisibly against the background illustration. Shin’s digitally composed illustrations include vignettes, full-page images and occasional double-page spreads. Details of clothing and the characters’ bike-related activities are clearly depicted. One helpful spread shows the bike’s shipboard path superimposed on a simple world map. The backmatter includes suggestions for readers to involve themselves in bicycle donation and a note for parents and teachers.
Well-meant but more didactic than entertaining. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-77138-023-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
The small, novel-like format (5.5 x 8 inches) will most likely appeal to reluctant or recently independent readers, who...
This much-abridged recreation of the famous tale by Hans Christian Andersen is smoothly told, following the original structure of seven short chapters, while leaving out numerous details and the Christian elements of the original.
Characters (a wolf) and incidents (a final confrontation between Gerda and the Snow Queen) have been added. Because of the elision and truncation of incidents from the original story, Gerda’s quest is less immediate and heart wrenching, and the motivations of many of the characters she meets are harder to understand. For example, it is not clear that the old woman with the magical garden tries to keep Gerda with her because she has always longed for a daughter, nor is the precarious situation of the outlaw’s daughter, who, in the original, sleeps with a knife at her side, apparent. The sophisticated, surreal and dreamlike illustrations created through mixed media, including manipulated photographs of dolls, flowers and paper constructions, often charmingly spill over onto the pages of text.
The small, novel-like format (5.5 x 8 inches) will most likely appeal to reluctant or recently independent readers, who might be encouraged by this simple retelling to seek fuller versions of the tale. (Fairy tale. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-84686-662-3
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
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