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DARLING ZHUZHA

Name: DARLING ZHUZHA
Author: Anastasia Dobrovolskaya

by Anastasia Dobrovolskaya & illustrated by Anatoly Lavrenishyn & developed by Timecode ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 4, 2014

A sweetly, quietly appealing piece of whimsy.

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This original fairy tale looks as timeworn as a fairy tale should, with a story just runic enough to keep the wheels turning in little minds.

“It was a greyish-blue day. Rainy and windy, it tasted like a dandelion blowball, felt like a wax cloth, smelt like a bonfire and was as long and slimy, as an earthworm.” Just the kind of day you might expect to find a hole in the pocket of your coat. A Man in a village finds himself in such a predicament. And worse: “[The] hole in his jacket turned out to be the size of his childhood. The Man has lost it a long, very long time ago.” Now, repairing the hole might cut the Man off completely from his childhood, so the fairy Zhuzha tells him to hold on, she’ll go look. She runs into a princess, who is literally fishing for compliments, and some squawking birds. Zhuzha has a brainstorm, even if it does mean she will be spending much time in the dark: She is “of the same size as the hole in [the] pocket.” The brief story (just six pages) is laid out on sepia-toned backgrounds with fine-lined, gently animated cartoon drawings to accompany the text. The village looks like a 19th-century shtetl preserved in amber, though it has (really charming) moving parts.

A sweetly, quietly appealing piece of whimsy. (iPad storybook app. 4-10)

Pub Date: July 4, 2014

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Timecode

Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014

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OTIS

From the Otis series

by Loren Long & illustrated by Loren Long ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2009

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Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Philomel

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
OTIS AND THE SCARECROW
by Loren Long ; illustrated by Loren Long

- BOOK REVIEW
AN OTIS CHRISTMAS
by Loren Long ; illustrated by Loren Long

- BOOK REVIEW
OTIS AND THE PUPPY
by Loren Long ; illustrated by Loren Long

- BOOK REVIEW
NEVER FORGET ELEANOR
by Jason June ; illustrated by Loren Long

- BOOK REVIEW
CHANGE SINGS
by Amanda Gorman ; illustrated by Loren Long

- BOOK REVIEW
SOMEONE BUILDS THE DREAM
by Lisa Wheeler ; illustrated by Loren Long

- SEEN & HEARD
Loren Long Inks Book Deal With Roaring Brook Press

PETE THE CAT'S 12 GROOVY DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

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PETE THE CAT'S 12 GROOVY DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

by James Dean ; illustrated by James Dean ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 18, 2018

Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among

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Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.

If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”

Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)