Slick production, heavy paper, an oversized (9 ¾ x 12 ¾ inches) format, and a handsome, stylized, 1950s sci-fi film look combine for a simple yet clever celebration of America’s favorite autumn holiday. “October 31 / It’s Halloween.” In a small New England–esque village-cum-subdivision, children prepare for Halloween. Inside golden and pumpkin-orange–toned rooms, a tableau reveals a clutch of retro-looking children carving jack-’o-lanterns and designing costumes. At midnight, with the trick-or-treating over and the children asleep, a mysterious enchantment causes hundreds of jack-’o-lanterns to rise and converge (along with a few broomsticks, some witches, ghosts, and quite a few ghouls), swooping through the night. A truck driver is amazed and startled, a convenience store is terrorized, and the sky is filled with grinning pumpkins that glow eerily and dance under a not-so-benign orange “pumpkin moon.” The next morning, the landscape is littered with pumpkin detritus while a newspaper headline asks and village kids wonder: “Halloween Hoax or Alien Invasion?” It’s impossible to approach this clever, handsome, British import without seeing it as a rather obvious homage to David Weisner’s Caldecott-winning Tuesday (1991). Spare, headline-like text combines effectively with Bartram’s bright autumnal palette. The interplay of spooky light and shadows, heightened by changing cinematic points of view, delivers a crowd-pleasing—if derivative—Halloween entry. A standout in a crowded pumpkin field. (Picture book. 6-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-525-46713-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
An effort as insubstantial as any spirit.
Eleven-year-old Maria Russo helps her charlatan mother hoodwink customers, but Maria has a spirited secret.
Maria’s mother, the psychic Madame Destine, cons widows out of their valuables with the assistance of their apartment building’s super, Mr. Fox. Madame Destine home-schools Maria, and because Destine is afraid of unwanted attention, she forbids Maria from talking to others. Maria is allowed to go to the library, where new librarian Ms. Madigan takes an interest in Maria that may cause her trouble. Meanwhile, Sebastian, Maria’s new upstairs neighbor, would like to be friends. All this interaction makes it hard for Maria to keep her secret: that she is visited by Edward, a spirit who tells her the actual secrets of Madame Destine’s clients via spirit writing. When Edward urges Maria to help Mrs. Fisher, Madame Destine’s most recent mark, Maria must overcome her shyness and her fear of her mother—helping Mrs. Fisher may be the key to the mysterious past Maria uncovers and a brighter future. Alas, picture-book–creator Ford’s middle-grade debut is a muddled, melodramatic mystery with something of an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink feel: In addition to the premise, there’s a tragically dead father, a mysterious family tree, and the Beat poets. Sluggish pacing; stilted, unrealistic dialogue; cartoonishly stock characters; and unattractive, flat illustrations make this one to miss. Maria and Sebastian are both depicted with brown skin, hers lighter than his; the other principals appear to be white.
An effort as insubstantial as any spirit. (author’s note) (Paranormal mystery. 7-10)Pub Date: July 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-20567-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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