Overall, though, this unusual tale sends an appealing message about making the most of a bad situation.
A funky little homeless family of refugees from a big city—hippie-ish mom, guitar-playing dad, boy, girl and white-haired granddad—discover the mysterious paths, strange creatures and hidden delights of Troll Wood, an abandoned forest.
In spite of the slightly sinister giant trolls, bits of whom peek out from surprising corners of every page, including the endpapers, the little family finds that the forgotten wood is a friendly place where they can find apples and plums to eat, flowers to pick, friendly animals to pet, and a house to fix up and live in. Hess’ softly textured illustrations in muted greens and browns nicely complement Cave’s simple but strangely compelling storyline. The poetic quality of the text, written largely in the second person, has a lyrical refrain that matches the mysterious mood of the story. Each page of short text ends with this refrain: “ ‘We will.’ And they did.” The final two spreads show the family’s can-do triumph. Unfortunately there is no attempt to synchronize the visual appearance of the text with the dreamy illustrations. The bland typeface and the unimaginative placement of much of the text in white boxes, while providing clarity, is a lost opportunity to integrate the type more closely with the illustrations. Given its nod to Where the Wild Things Are, it’s a shame the book doesn’t meet this particular design challenge with more elegance.
Overall, though, this unusual tale sends an appealing message about making the most of a bad situation. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-84780-238-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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