Charming resource for parents looking for a way to allow their kids to celebrate Halloween without becoming indebted to the...
A debut Halloween picture book that ends with a tricky treat.
How can families celebrate Halloween without making it all about the candy? Ricker’s book is designed to help transform Halloween by shifting its focus, but it requires parents to be in cahoots with the author, so adult readers should know how the book works before reading it to young ones. Here’s how it goes: One Halloween night, a young boy named Holden dresses as a knight and heads out trick-or-treating. He encounters the Sugar Witch, who needs candy to build her sugar castle. She’s trying to trick-or-treat, but all the homeowners turn her away because she’s too big. She asks Holden to share his candy, knowing he won’t want to. Afraid she’ll take it, he eats himself sick even before he’s done trick-or-treating. Finally, the Sugar Witch offers him a deal, which isn’t explained until the book’s end. He apparently agrees, since she gives him a magic box that he takes home. Just before going to sleep, he dumps all his candy except five pieces into the box. In the morning, he awakens to a treat in the box—a toy knight—and the knowledge that he’s helped the Sugar Witch build her sugar castle. He keeps using the box, and each year, he receives a toy in trade for his candy. On the final page, the narrator invites readers to put their candy in a box or bowl and leave it for the Sugar Witch, saving just a few pieces for themselves. The narrator suggests that the Sugar Witch may visit readers, just as she visited Holden, bringing them treats in exchange for their candy. As a reading experience, the book has its ups and downs. As the appealing digital illustrations, which feature a spooky nighttime sky, help keep the tale moving, the language can be rich and evocative—“clanged and clamored”; “tripped over a twisty twig.” Yet some of the sentences are too long for young readers: The single sentence on the second page of text is 53 words. Parents who are prepared are likely to enjoy their children’s responses, but those who don’t grasp the book’s participatory premise may feel tricked by what children could interpret as a promise of another Halloween treat.
Charming resource for parents looking for a way to allow their kids to celebrate Halloween without becoming indebted to the dentist.Pub Date: April 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-1480806900
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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