A man’s greed leads to his downfall in this adaptation of an 1886 short story. Pakhom is a peasant whose wife is happy with life but who himself has an insatiable desire for more and more land. He follows rumors and stories from place to place, enlarging his holdings each time, until he hears that the Bashkirs are practically giving away huge tracts of land. He investigates, to find that for 1,000 rubles, he can claim as much land as he can walk around in a day. Greed keeps him walking until sundown, when he finally reaches his starting point—and falls down dead. It is a sudden end to what has until that point been a fairly sprightly tale about greed and contentment along the lines of the many variants on “The Fisherman and His Wife.” The final illustration depicts Pakhom ascending with a host of angels, but it is doubtful that this will do much to soften the text: “Pakhom’s servant . . . dug his master a grave—just as long and as wide as Pakhom’s body where it lay upon the earth.” As an adaptation, the story cuts much from the original that lends it psychological and political depth, notably the involvement of the Devil in Pakhom’s lust for land and Pakhom’s relationships with various local Communes and landlords. Kiev-based Abesinova’s illustrations are humorous and highly detailed, cramming every possible element into richly colored, flat tableaux. Although they are entirely pleasing of themselves, they do little to extend the story of a man who is so driven to own land that he literally walks himself to death. For more psychologically satisfying treatments of the same theme, stick to the aforementioned folktales. There are no translation/abridgment/adaptation credits; however, a biographical note on Tolstoy follows the text. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-56656-407-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crocodile/Interlink
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A trite, knock-off sequel to Jumanji (1981). The “Jumanji” box distracts Walter Budwing away from beating up on his little brother Danny, but it’s Danny who discovers the Zathura board inside—and in no time, Earth is far behind, a meteor has smashed through the roof, and a reptilian Zyborg pirate is crawling through the hole. Each throw of the dice brings an ominous new development, portrayed in grainy, penciled freeze frames featuring sculptured-looking figures in constricted, almost claustrophobic settings. The angles of view are, as always, wonderfully dramatic, but not only is much of the finer detail that contributed to Jumanji’s astonishing realism missing, the spectacular damage being done to the Budwings’ house as the game progresses is, by and large, only glimpsed around the picture edges. Naturally, having had his bacon repeatedly saved by his younger sibling’s quick thinking, once Walter falls through a black hole to a time preceding the game’s start, his attitude toward Danny undergoes a sudden, radical transformation. Van Allsburg’s imagination usually soars right along with his accomplished art—but here, both are just running in place. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2002
ISBN: 0-618-25396-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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