A busy, imaginative, beguiling fairy tale.
In this lush, kaleidoscopic children’s fantasy, a plucky Filipino lad embarks on a magical mystery tour in search of a talisman that can save his father’s life.
Twelve-year-old Tetong rolls his eyes at the superstitious beliefs held by people in his Filipino village, but that skepticism is soon demolished by the mind-blowing adventures he experiences in this frenetic yarn. When his father contracts a mysterious ailment that baffles local healers, Tetong sets off in search of a cure and has encounters with strange and supernatural beings. He makes friends with an irascible witch and a creek monster (whom he returns to human form), rescues an injured eagle, liberates roosters from cruel bondage and frees horses from impending slaughter. His good-heartedness wins him valuable allies, an invisibility hat, a magic green orb and the power to fly, but it also incurs the wrath of a sorcerer known as the Man In Black, whom Tetong will have to fight in order to find a magic bird and lift the curse on the Land of the Unknown. Reyna tells Tetong’s story in the classic style of a fairy tale: Wondrous happenings proceed matter-of-factly; developments unfold by arbitrary incantatory rules; animals talk; and a deep moral reciprocity shapes a world in which favors are always repaid. Her prose is straightforward and brisk, her lavish imagery at times almost psychedelic (“[S]mall drops of purple light changed to orange and huge rolling eyeballs seemed to stare at him”) and her characters piquant. Along the way, she includes descriptive passages about Filipino village life, illustrated with engaging sketches. The narrative teems with so much action and spectacle that it sometimes loses the main story thread amid the whirl, but young readers will find plenty of diverting romps to hold their attention.
A busy, imaginative, beguiling fairy tale.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2012
ISBN: 13-978-1479205691
Page Count: 260
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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