There is no sunlight in Harlem the day Mama Luka tells Lee Edward the "dark and wiggly" story of Jahdu running to the east to look for light and time, which have vanished, and to be born again in his oven. Young readers might well concur with Mama Luka's description of the tale, for along with the giant Trouble and such simple abstractions from the Time-Ago Tales, Jahdu also runs into Yin (described as the "shade," who has become unduly strong) and Yang (warmth and light). Reborn as a fur-clad yellow boy with bow and arrow, Jahdu singiehandedly restores the world's balance by shooting the Goddess of Ying, an ancient turtle responsible for the changing seasons. The mechanics of all this are duly explained in the story, but just the same that fractious old Jahdu has got himself into some heavy weather here — which so burdens him with import and responsibility that there's hardly time for tricks. In any case the Jahdu cycle ends fittingly when Lee Edward, troubled because Mama Luka is being relocated, dreams that he is running along with Jahdu, who builds a new house for Mama Luka and shows Lee Edward his oven (which — of course — is Mama Luka). On waking, Lee Edward is assured by his Daddy that indeed there will be time before Mama Luka moves for him to grow enough to travel by subway to visit her. Whether Jahdu has been enlarged or inflated is still a question; we'd prefer to let his younger followers, who will have no preconceptions about the symbolic characters, tell us if they find Time-Ago recaptured here.
Pub Date: Feb. 26, 1973
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1973
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sadly, the storytelling runs aground.
A little red sleigh has big Christmas dreams.
Although the detailed, full-color art doesn’t anthropomorphize the protagonist (which readers will likely identify as a sled and not a sleigh), a close third-person text affords the object thoughts and feelings while assigning feminine pronouns. “She longed to become Santa’s big red sleigh,” reads an early line establishing the sleigh’s motivation to leave her Christmas-shop home for the North Pole. Other toys discourage her, but she perseveres despite creeping self-doubt. A train and truck help the sleigh along, and when she wishes she were big, fast, and powerful like them, they offer encouragement and counsel patience. When a storm descends after the sleigh strikes out on her own, an unnamed girl playing in the snow brings her to a group of children who all take turns riding the sleigh down a hill. When the girl brings her home, the sleigh is crestfallen she didn’t reach the North Pole. A convoluted happily-ever-after ending shows a note from Santa that thanks the sleigh for giving children joy and invites her to the North Pole next year. “At last she understood what she was meant to do. She would build her life up spreading joy, one child at a time.” Will she leave the girl’s house to be gifted to other children? Will she stay and somehow also reach ever more children? Readers will be left wondering. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 31.8% of actual size.)
Sadly, the storytelling runs aground. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72822-355-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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