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GRANDPA WAS A COWBOY

Name: GRANDPA WAS A COWBOY
Author: Silky Sullivan
ISBN: 0-531-09511-8

by Silky Sullivan & illustrated by Bert Dodson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1996

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An achingly lovely story of a child's regaining a sense of his family's past. Grandpa is old, gray, and willowy by the time he first visits his young grandson (who narrates), sometime early in this century. He has a touch of the mythic about him: frontier cowboy, roving photographer, Ozark homesteader, father of 11. Passing along his life story to the boy, he downplays its sheer heroism and highlights smaller pleasures. When the boy (an orphan since infancy, he lives with an uncle and aunt) produces a picture of his dad, Grandpa speaks his piece in throat-tightening simplicity: ``He was too young to be no soldier, but he done good. They told me so.'' Grandpa soon heads home to his Ozark cabin. ``I won't be back. It's too far and I'm too old.'' Throughout, the boy's sense of loss, displacement, thirst for warmth, and need for Grandpa's words are always palpable. The visit is so fleeting, yet there's no doubt this brief encounter will linger with the boy, and even change his life. The jacket painting is a little mawkish, but Dodson's fine interior illustrations are as evocative, suggestive, and as unpretentious as the old man himself. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: March 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-531-09511-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Orchard

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1996

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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RAPUNZEL

adapted by Rachel Isadora & illustrated by Rachel Isadora ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2008

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Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your dreads! Isadora once again plies her hand using colorful, textured collages to depict her fourth fairy tale relocated to Africa. The narrative follows the basic story line: Taken by an evil sorceress at birth, Rapunzel is imprisoned in a tower; Rapunzel and the prince “get married” in the tower and she gets pregnant. The sorceress cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and tricks the prince, who throws himself from the tower and is blinded by thorns. The terse ending states: “The prince led Rapunzel and their twins to his kingdom, where they were received with great joy and lived happily every after.” Facial features, clothing, dreadlocks, vultures and the prince riding a zebra convey a generic African setting, but at times, the mixture of patterns and textures obfuscates the scenes. The textile and grain characteristic of the hewn art lacks the elegant romance of Zelinksy’s Caldecott version. Not a first purchase, but useful in comparing renditions to incorporate a multicultural aspect. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-399-24772-9

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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by Rachel Isadora ; illustrated by Rachel Isadora

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MY DOG LAUGHS
by Rachel Isadora ; illustrated by Rachel Isadora

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I JUST WANT TO SAY GOOD NIGHT
by Rachel Isadora ; illustrated by Rachel Isadora

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STINK AND THE MIDNIGHT ZOMBIE WALK

From the Stink series

by Megan McDonald & illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 13, 2012

This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...

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An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.

This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.