In this sketchy but elegantly appointed version of a Russian folktale, one brother gets further with kindness than another does by being clever. As a reward for rescuing a baby bird, Ivan is taught bird language—an ability that not only repeatedly allows him to save his reckless, quick-tongued brother, Vasili, from disaster, but ultimately wins him the czar’s daughter. Framed in black, with running borders of delicately drawn feathers or bird tracks, Gaber’s acrylics, multilayered and thinly applied over a golden undercoat, have an appropriately rich, exotic look, and the different personalities of the brothers are clear to see. Readers may wonder why Vasili never shows a trace of ill feeling at having his fat snatched from the fire so much by Ivan, and how their father, fulfilling a prophecy, comes to be the ragged, unrecognized beggar who shows up near the end—but Ivan’s dreamy gentleness sets a pleasant tone, and the tale’s point is made without sermonizing. (Picture book/folktale. 7-9)
Pub Date: July 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-399-22925-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
Mama God, Papa God ($15.95; Apr. 26; 32 pp.; 1-56656-307-0): The creation story takes a whimsical Caribbean turn in a seamless blend of religion and folk-art set in Haiti. Tired of living in darkness, Papa God creates light, then goes on to make the world as a beautiful gift for Mama God. Together, they design a detailed world filled with brilliance, love, and humor. Highly stylized illustrations rich in primary colors show the progress of creation as animals, birds, water, fish, wind, and rain take their place in the world. This unusual rendition of the creation tale sings to a calypso beat and gives a strikingly different and exuberant interpretation of how the world began. (Picture book. 3-8)
Pub Date: April 26, 1999
ISBN: 1-56656-307-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Interlink
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
A beguiling retelling of a 19th-century Lincolnshire tale that fairly dances with an impatience to be read aloud. Mouth-filling words dot this story, the context making them easily understood while taking away none of their mystery. Bogles and other horrid things live in the cracks and cinders and sleep in the fields in the old times, and at darkling every night folk walk round their houses with lights in their hands to keep the mischancy beings away. In autumn, “they sang hush-a-bye songs in the fields, for the earth was tired” and they fear the winters when the bogles have nothing to do but make mischief. As the year turns, they wake the earth from its sleeping each spring, and welcome the green mist that brings new growth. In one family, a child pines, longing for the green mist to return with the sun. Through the long winter she grows so weak her mother must carry her to the doorsill, so she can crumble the bread and salt onto the earth to hail the spring. The green mist comes, scented with herbs and green as grass, and the child thrives, once again “running about like a sunbeam.” The green, gold, brown, and gray of the watercolors show fields and haycocks, knobby-kneed children and raw-boned elders, a counterpoint to the rich text. (Picture book. 4-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90013-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
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