Written in 1873 and most recently appearing in print in English in the 1930s, this tale of a lame, timorous lad who grows out of his “wings of fear” makes a theatrical coming-of-age story, with fantasy elements and antique, but not cloying, sentiments stirred in. Thought to be a simpleton because of his weak leg and timid nature, Clopinet, 11, is apprenticed to a malodorous tailor, a hunchback known as “Pull-To-The-Left” because he is left-handed. Then Clopinet escapes to a cave on the Normandy coast where he can watch the birds, always his favorite occupation. So great is his longing to fly that in moments of extreme feeling or danger he grows wings; he uses them to rescue the feared tailor from drowning, and loses them thereafter until the very end of his life. The self-reliance he learns while living alone takes him through years as a traveler, taxidermist (working only on birds killed by others), and, at last, heir to a childless local baron. Shifting the emphasis from character to plot, Wersba (Whistle Me Home, 1997, etc) reworks Margaret Bloom’s 1930 translation (Tales of a Grandmother), preserving the structure and some dialogue but trimming longwinded speeches, minor scenes, and Clopinet’s bird observations, tightening the prose, and reducing Pull-To-The-Left’s presence. The result is still a leisurely, formally told story, but patient readers will be as absorbed by Clopinet’s gentle spirit and profound delight in the natural world as by his occasional transformations. (b&w illustrations, not seen) (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8076-1434-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Braziller
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998
Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel; then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed. As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here. And both struggle for visibility beneath a wagonload of symbol and metaphor: the real tiger (and the inevitable recitation of Blake's poem); the cage; Rob's dream of Sistine riding away on the beast's back; a mysterious skin condition on Rob's legs that develops after his mother's death; a series of wooden figurines that he whittles; a larger-than-life African-American housekeeper at the motel who dispenses wisdom with nearly every utterance; and the climax itself, which is signaled from the start. It's all so freighted with layers of significance that, like Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (2000), Anne Mazer's Oxboy (1995), or, further back, Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead (1965), it becomes more an exercise in analysis than a living, breathing story. Still, the tiger, "burning bright" with magnificent, feral presence, does make an arresting central image. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-0911-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
BOOK TO SCREEN
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