An energetic, girl-power addition to the fairy- and folktales shelf.
When Blancaflor’s father, an ogre, sets a trap to win a prince’s kingdom and then eat him up, Blancaflor sets out to thwart the plan.
In a twist from the traditional trope in which a damsel in distress is saved by the dashing prince with whom she then lives happily ever after, here it is the brave and resourceful young woman with hidden powers who saves the clueless prince. As the ogre and the prince play “The Ogre’s Three,” a deadly game the ogre is bound to win, Blancaflor carries out the challenges, letting the prince believe it is he—and his luck—who has accomplished the feats. As in so many fairy tales, in spite of her smarts and his lack thereof, the pair fall in love at first sight, and they do go on to live happily ever after. García Sánchez captures the nonstop action with artwork that is dynamic and vibrant. Readers can’t help but follow as the story goes back and forth between pages full of panels to full-bleed illustrations. The brown-skinned characters have wonderfully expressive faces despite deceptively simple styling. The setting of the story—and the story itself—feels more European than Latin American, a phenomenon of cultural exchange addressed in a foreword by F. Isabel Campoy and in Spiegelman’s closing note. The book publishes simultaneously in Spanish, ably translated by María E. Santana and José M. Méndez.
An energetic, girl-power addition to the fairy- and folktales shelf. (Graphic folktale. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-943145-55-3
Page Count: 56
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A pure turkey shoot, though “National Geographic wants you to know what explorers know, what makes them successful.” That...
A debatable selection of items to master before you grow up—meaning, perhaps, freshman year of high school.
This collection is a strictly hit-or-miss affair from a variety of angles: good point, good explanation; good point, bad explanation; pointless point, explanation irrelevant. Taking everything from personal attitude to skills to knowledge into account, sometimes the item and the accompanying instructions are smack on: how to field criticism, do your laundry, learn to say no (“Don’t offer too much explanation” and “You can always say ‘thanks for asking’ ”); what to do if someone is choking (best tip here: “take a first aid or CPR course”); how to make your bed and load a dishwasher and defeat a mosquito bite (not all at once). But advice like “balance is something you can improve upon with practice” or “your journal is completely up to you” is meaningless, as, arguably, are the quaint tips on map-reading and how to write a check (why not how to treat a black mamba bite or, maybe, raise a roof beam, which are just about as likely to arise?), and then there is the questionable: “If you are biting your nails when you’re watching TV, try chewing gum.”
A pure turkey shoot, though “National Geographic wants you to know what explorers know, what makes them successful.” That must have been educational TV and sugarless gum. (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4263-2316-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: National Geographic Kids
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A few mild chills but bland and generic fare overall.
Supernatural talk and tales from a Newfoundland poet and lifelong resident.
Being more “talk” than “tales,” the nine episodes are mostly reminiscences in which narrators of both sexes recall hearing about the encounters of others with eldritch folk in spooky settings, including a headless ghost, a changeling in their baby’s crib, flickering “corpse candles” in a graveyard, or in some cases just scary spots in the woods. Though Dawe supplies source notes with further anecdotes, it’s not clear whether he’s actually recording stories he heard or spinning fragmentary memories and standard folkloric motifs into fictive creations. In either case, despite atmospheric language and Tomova’s dark and eerie linocut illustrations, readers are likely to feel distanced by the second- (or third-) hand narratives. Nor, though the author often refers to real locales, is there much beyond a vaguely Celtic air to give the tales a flavorsome sense of specific place or culture. There is no sign of racial or ethnic diversity in either pictures or text.
A few mild chills but bland and generic fare overall. (glossary) (Folkloric short stories. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-927917-13-8
Page Count: 60
Publisher: Running the Goat
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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