Despite masterful visual storytelling, this environmental and societal parable ultimately falls short.
A young girl is determined to help the people in a land plagued by pollution.
Lush, atmospheric paintings show Nell, a little inventor from the Cheng family, loading up her plant-powered breathing machine to bring to the city. Wearing her simple Chinese-style peasant’s clothing and a breathing mask, Nell finds herself in a oppressively polluted Dickensian city complete with dandies in top hats, women wearing high-necked gowns, and street urchins. Inside an imposing building shrouded in gray, she presents her invention to the “people in charge,” a group of White men in suits huddled in a dark, wood-paneled hall. They are not interested in her machine. Nell returns home, dejected but determined, having received encouragement from Mrs. Li, who works in the men’s building. Nell builds a bigger, better machine and heads back to the city. Unfortunately, Ng’s serviceable text is unequal to the masterful and evocative artwork, which uses both large spreads and small panels to convey the breadth of the setting and the details of the story. Every page is saturated with visual subtext, such as class and cultural differences and the patriarchal structure. There is so much this parable could have conveyed with some follow-through, but the book abruptly ends in the middle of the climax, leaving readers quizzically looking for more pages and scratching their heads in disappointment. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11.5-by-18.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 43.9% of actual size.)
Despite masterful visual storytelling, this environmental and societal parable ultimately falls short. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-76052-356-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: A & U Children/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A good bet for the youngest bird-watchers.
Echoing the meter of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” Ward uses catchy original rhymes to describe the variety of nests birds create.
Each sweet stanza is complemented by a factual, engaging description of the nesting habits of each bird. Some of the notes are intriguing, such as the fact that the hummingbird uses flexible spider web to construct its cup-shaped nest so the nest will stretch as the chicks grow. An especially endearing nesting behavior is that of the emperor penguin, who, with unbelievable patience, incubates the egg between his tummy and his feet for up to 60 days. The author clearly feels a mission to impart her extensive knowledge of birds and bird behavior to the very young, and she’s found an appealing and attractive way to accomplish this. The simple rhymes on the left page of each spread, written from the young bird’s perspective, will appeal to younger children, and the notes on the right-hand page of each spread provide more complex factual information that will help parents answer further questions and satisfy the curiosity of older children. Jenkins’ accomplished collage illustrations of common bird species—woodpecker, hummingbird, cowbird, emperor penguin, eagle, owl, wren—as well as exotics, such as flamingoes and hornbills, are characteristically naturalistic and accurate in detail.
A good bet for the youngest bird-watchers. (author’s note, further resources) (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-2116-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard.
A grouchy sapling on a Christmas tree farm finds that there are better things than lights and decorations for its branches.
A Grinch among the other trees on the farm is determined never to become a sappy Christmas tree—and never to leave its spot. Its determination makes it so: It grows gnarled and twisted and needle-less. As time passes, the farm is swallowed by the suburbs. The neighborhood kids dare one another to climb the scary, grumpy-looking tree, and soon, they are using its branches for their imaginative play, the tree serving as a pirate ship, a fort, a spaceship, and a dragon. But in winter, the tree stands alone and feels bereft and lonely for the first time ever, and it can’t look away from the decorated tree inside the house next to its lot. When some parents threaten to cut the “horrible” tree down, the tree thinks, “Not now that my limbs are full of happy children,” showing how far it has come. Happily for the tree, the children won’t give up so easily, and though the tree never wished to become a Christmas tree, it’s perfectly content being a “trick or tree.” Martinez’s digital illustrations play up the humorous dichotomy between the happy, aspiring Christmas trees (and their shoppers) and the grumpy tree, and the diverse humans are satisfyingly expressive.
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7335-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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