Here’s hoping Van Slyke and Hartland will round up some more nifty yarns, as this is clever wordplay to share with kids.
Everyone knows Lexie is the best wrangler west of the Mississippi—best word wrangler, that is.
Outfitted in a tall hat and fancy boots, the freckle-faced white girl can ride, twirl a lariat, and herd cantankerous cattle. Besides that, she can tie words together, like “corn” and “bread” to make “cornbread.” In the spring she watches the baby letters grow into words that she can herd into sentences and then make into messages. Everyone agrees that Lexie is a champion word wrangler, except for one rascal who starts messing with her words. “Dogies” become “doggies,” a “bandana” becomes a “banana,” and a twinkling “star” is turned into several “rats.” “Ain’t no fun sleeping out under the rats,” says Lexie in a colossal understatement. Yep, it’s a word rustler at work. Lexie sets off to find the culprit and bring him to justice. In a sundown ambush, she lassoes the scoundrel: it’s a black kid named Russell. All he wants is to work with words like Lexie. So Russell the word rustler—make that wrestler—joins Lexie the word wrangler, and a rootin’ tootin’ team is hitched up. Hartland’s quirky gouache illustrations, reminiscent of Maira Kalman’s work, play up the Western-style humor. The last page has a dictionary of wrangler words.
Here’s hoping Van Slyke and Hartland will round up some more nifty yarns, as this is clever wordplay to share with kids. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-16957-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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