This exuberant, beautifully crafted tale introduces Mexico’s Day of the Dead to young adventure fans.
Mexican children try to help a forgotten spirit reunite with her family in this middle-grade graphic novel.
In Mexico, the Day of the Dead celebrates the notion that “a person hasn’t truly died until that person is forgotten.” As the festival begins, a woman in skull makeup finds a boy sleeping in an alley among the trash. This is Jonah, whom she challenges to learn the difference between the living and the dead. She leaves him with the cryptic phrase “Wednesday’s child is full of woe.” Elsewhere in the city, a young woman named Nena plays hide-and-seek with a young man named Bastian. When he finds her, she offers to show him a secret. She leads him to a crypt full of skulls. By candlelight, he soon sees that she is also one of the dead. Earlier, a girl named Violetta tells her friends Daphne and Marguerite that on the Day of the Dead, the shroud between the worlds of the living and the dead is at its thinnest. The trio sneaks into a graveyard to light a candle and invite a forgotten spirit across the shroud. When they succeed, the spirit—who turns out to be Nena—says: “I find myself in requirement of a soul to continue building the rest of my body.” With the help of local priest Father Eduardo and Violetta’s brother, Eli, can the children discover who might remember the spirit of Nena? Greentea, with vibrant art by Müller, offers a spooky but emotionally bright middle-grade adventure. Fun motifs, like abandoned doll factories and single red balloons, pay homage to the horror genre. Witty moments that will shine for adult readers include Eli calling the skull-painted woman a “crackpot” only to receive her glare. Warm art, with almost no hard, black outlines, feels like a bridge to Disney films from the Lilo & Stitch (2002) era, prior to fully digital animation. Sharp-eyed readers should see clever narrative clues along the way, as when Nena’s foot briefly appears skeletal. Her red dress, like the balloon, spurs the audience toward a delightful solution to the problem faced by more than one character. Middle-grade readers will likely want to learn more about other cultures after this romp.
This exuberant, beautifully crafted tale introduces Mexico’s Day of the Dead to young adventure fans.Pub Date: May 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9996112-6-5
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Greentea Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cute and sprightly but not a standout.
Deck the stalls?
A bevy of barnyard animals, a cat, and some dogs get fully into the Christmas spirit by sprucing up the farm with colorful decorations, including holly berries and sparkling baubles. They have a great time and sing while going about their merry chores in a manner somewhat in keeping with the rhythm of the classic tune “Deck the Halls.” (In fact, a flock of sheep are shown holding song sheets for it.) As might be expected with these particular celebrants, some of the familiar lyrics are altered just a bit; for instance, “boughs of holly” is “translated” as “cows and holly.” Adult readers expecting the rhythm here to work exactly as it does in the original will be disappointed, because it doesn’t—it’s clunky. This is merely a brief, lightweight spoof of the familiar ditty, so it’s recommended that grown-ups read rather than sing this—except for that final line!—to very young targeted audiences, who may be unfamiliar with the actual song anyway. Some fun is still to be had in the illustrations, however. The spirited, wittily expressive animal characters are depicted having a fine time romping about and producing a variety of onomatopoeic sounds throughout. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Cute and sprightly but not a standout. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66591-435-2
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Boynton Bookworks
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
