Unlike Gripe's contemporary Hugo and Josephine books, The Glassblower's Children is a fairy tale, with remote storybook settings, mythic themes and archetypal rather than realistic characters. The first chapters, drenched in Germanic folklore, are dominated by an almost tangible sense of foreboding which peaks at the country fair when Albert the glassmaker confronts the clairvoyant Flutter Mildweather, who weaves uncanny tapestries on Gallows Hill where she lives with a one-eyed raven. Then, in keeping with Flutter's prophecy, the glassmaker's beautiful children are kidnapped and carried across the river of forgotten memories into an altogether more elegant (and perhaps more French than Teutonic) but just as menacing fairytale world, linked with Albert's only by Gripe's dazzling but artificial glass imagery. Here the rich young Lord of All Wishes Town and his unhappy Lady hire a governess for the children, and Nanny's consuming evil presence and grotesque proportions introduce a third note, that of surreal extravagance. Unfortunately the shifts in scene and focus tend to dissipate the tension and instead of mounting revelation and convergence the climactic Flutter-Nanny confrontation (they turn out to be twin sisters) simply makes the previously mysterious Flutter a more and more conventional figure. Despite the seams and weak spots, however, Gripe polishes each separate scene to fine perfection and makes each development more chilling than the last.
Pub Date: May 7, 1973
ISBN: 978-1-59017-728-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1973
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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