A bland if pretty treatment for adults who feel their children are not ready for the original.
Paired to creamy, surreal illustrations, an abbreviated and retold account of Alice’s sojourn from her encounter with the Cheshire Cat on in this sequel to Alice in Wonderland: Down the Rabbit Hole (2015).
The general plotline remains intact, though along with leaving out the Mock Turtle, the Lobster Quadrille, nearly all of the poetry, and much else, Rhatigan and Nurnberg modernize and retune the language as well. Alice is first offered “juice” rather than wine at the tea party, and later, seeing that she refuses to have her head cut off, the Queen says “Well, okay. Can you play croquet?” Puybaret fills in a few of the missing details (putting gardeners painting white roses red in one scene’s background, for instance) but focuses mainly on creating spacious, neatly composed tableaux in harmonious colors. These feature exotic flora, animals in stylish court dress, and (mostly) light-skinned human figures with long pointy noses and glassy eyes. Alice, a blonde, white beauty in a flowing green skirt, wakes at last and is last seen skipping home, heedless of the white rabbit and other previously met characters looking on. The adapters’ retelling of co-published The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Adventures, illustrated by Debra Bandelin and Bob Dacey, is similarly abbreviated though not quite so colloquial.
A bland if pretty treatment for adults who feel their children are not ready for the original. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63322-110-9
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Moondance/Quarto
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
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 jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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