As a story to teach girls that their proper roles are as appearance-conscious, selfless helpmates, it succeeds insidiously.
In her awkward first year, white Princess Grace faces challenges at Tall Towers Princess Academy.
Grace is the 13th princess in a class that traditionally has 12. Her cousin, blonde Princess Precious, is horrified that clumsy Grace is even allowed to attend. But Grace passes the unicorn test —if a unicorn picks a princess (an eyebrow-raising allusion to the unicorn/virgin myth), the princess stays. With numbing predictability, Grace trips, rips, and bumbles her way through lessons: how to curtsey, how to ride her unicorn sidesaddle, how to care a great deal about external appearances. Grace feels out of place; not because, as readers might hope, she sees how repressive all this is, but because she is not good at it. Racial diversity is included in Scott’s illustrations, although whites dominate in both numbers and leadership positions. Narratively, stereotypes, like a low-grade fever, pervade: diminutive Izumi is talented and hardworking, while Latisha is “sporty.” A proper princess, the girls are taught, is graceful, elegant, courteous, and selfless. The final scene hopes to be empowering but only manages to emphasize gender-role stereotypes as Grace is praised more for helping the (male) knight out of his distress by secretly volunteering in his place than for winning the joust.
As a story to teach girls that their proper roles are as appearance-conscious, selfless helpmates, it succeeds insidiously. (Fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-53775-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
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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