A mother’s exasperated shout of “This place looks like a three-ring circus!” borders on the literal in this ambiguous concoction in which a young girl’s daytime nap leads to dreams of the circus. When her mother goes upstairs to take a break, a young girl dreams of acrobats and clowns, bareback riders, and a lady on a flying trapeze who rescues the child. A few imprecise clues tweak readers into questioning what’s real and what’s imagined: The mother carries a mysterious black hat upstairs with her; a lot of overheard thumping and bumping ensues. The story relies heavily on the suggestion of the title, for within the pages there’s no mention of the mother’s secret life. That the girl’s cat has the smell of popcorn on his breath at the end of the fantasy is the only indication that the circus events were not just a dream. Emberley arrays the fantasy realm with bright feathers, glitter, beads, tinsel, and neon-colored mesh netting; children won’t miss the details of a mother’s sparkling nail polish, a broken string of pearls, or the sequined tip of a clown’s shoe. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-316-23496-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1998
A traditional cumulative tale, which Aylesworth (My Sister's Rusty Bike, 1996, etc.) endows with a lively pace, is illustrated in a decidedly old-fashioned style, giving the book the look and feel of a reproduction of an old edition. Working with precise pen-and-ink, McClintock portrays the cozy home of an elderly couple, dressed in Victoriana and in possession of a great wood-burning stove. Her work has never been more animated than in the scenes of the two-dimensional gingerbread man running away, exuberantly eluding everyone elsethe couple, a butcher, and a cow and pig dressed in human clothesuntil he is devoured by a fox. The portrayals of a cow and pig are more bizarre than charming, and the too-obvious wrinkles on the elderly people's faces are one example of eccentric choices on the part of the illustrator.With Richard Egielski's The Gingerbread Boy (1997) hot off the press and other fine variations of the tale still in print, it's hard to make the case for this one, other than to appreciate its antique look. (Picture book/folklore. 4-6)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-590-97219-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Mixed-race children certainly deserve mirror books, but they also deserve excellent text and illustrations. This one misses...
This tan-skinned, freckle-faced narrator extols her own virtues while describing the challenges of being of mixed race.
Protagonist Lilly appears on the cover, and her voluminous curly, twirly hair fills the image. Throughout the rhyming narrative, accompanied by cartoonish digital illustrations, Lilly brags on her dark skin (that isn’t very), “frizzy, wild” hair, eyebrows, intellect, and more. Her five friends present black, Asian, white (one blonde, one redheaded), and brown (this last uses a wheelchair). This array smacks of tokenism, since the protagonist focuses only on self-promotion, leaving no room for the friends’ character development. Lilly describes how hurtful racial microaggressions can be by recalling questions others ask her like “What are you?” She remains resilient and says that even though her skin and hair make her different, “the way that I look / Is not all I’m about.” But she spends so much time talking about her appearance that this may be hard for readers to believe. The rhyming verse that conveys her self-celebration is often clumsy and forced, resulting in a poorly written, plotless story for which the internal illustrations fall far short of the quality of the cover image.
Mixed-race children certainly deserve mirror books, but they also deserve excellent text and illustrations. This one misses the mark on both counts. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63233-170-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Eifrig
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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