It seems like the question isn’t “whose story is it?” at book’s end, but what other stories might have arisen through these...
A metafictive text introduces a bevy of exciting characters.
The title page indicates the tension between the competing narratives suggested by the book’s title since it includes four scratched-out, but legible, titles above the main one. The book proper begins with a declaration from a brown-haired, white child that the story is great “Because it’s all about me.” As pages turn, however, Salty Pete the pirate, a dinosaur, an extraterrestrial named Yurxl, and Sir Knightly astride a horse all enter the story and jockey for position in asserting their own stories. The child who began the story is not amused! Increasingly crowded images introduce Vikings, robots, and zombies to the story. (All the human characters are white.) Ultimately, there’s room for all when the text resolves with the statement that this is a story about when the child “met a bunch of crazy new friends,” but it’s hard not to feel as though both Flaherty and the narrator are caving in under the pressure. Cartoon-style digital art matches the rising excitement of the text as the pages progress and then depicts the final, calm scene in silhouette. This is a well-worn conceit in contemporary picture books, and it delivers an anticlimactic conclusion after so much buildup.
It seems like the question isn’t “whose story is it?” at book’s end, but what other stories might have arisen through these characters? (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4549-1608-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016
Take strength from the dreamers before you and follow your dreams. Or maybe just roll the dice.
Is it a book about aspirations or the backstory for the board game?
Chickapig is defined as “an animal hybrid that is half-chicken and half-pig” and is depicted in yellow, two-legged chick shape with pink pig snout and ears. Young Joe Chickapig lives on a farm that was his grandfather’s dream, but it’s getting Joe down. He dreams of adventure but needs the “courage to follow his heart. / But how could he do it? How could he start?” In a bedtime story, Joe’s mother shares the influential characters that helped Joe’s sailor grandfather “follow his heart against the tide.” It seems that “Grandpa had heard a story told / Of a great big bear who broke the mold. / The bear was tired of striking fear”—so he became a forest doctor and a friend to all. And the bear’s inspiration? “A mouse who went to space.” The mouse, in turn, found hope in a “fierce young dragon” who joined a rock band. And coming full circle, the dragon found courage from a Chickapig warrior who “tired of shields and swords to wield” and established a farm. Chickapig game fans will appreciate this fanciful rhyming tale illustrated in attention-grabbing colors, but readers coming to it cold will note a distinct absence of plot. Mouse and dragon present female; all others are male.
Take strength from the dreamers before you and follow your dreams. Or maybe just roll the dice. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7944-4452-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Printers Row
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
A kidnapped orphan races away to freedom. In an Arabian village, a little boy named Azad, who lives with his poor elderly uncle, fetches water for tea and tends to the goat before running off to play with his friends. His gymnastics skills attract the attention of a sheikh, who offers to train the boy as a camel rider. Whisked to the desert to live with a bunch of other boys, Azad competes in dangerous races and suffers brutal discipline. He and his camel Asfur become inseparable; one day, they win a race and keep going, until the men who have oppressed them are far in the distance. Boy and camel sleep curled up together under the desert moon and awake to the smiling faces of a group of Bedouins; Azad and Asfur have found a home at last. Pal's striking illustrations in watercolor and ink position sharply delineated characters in the foreground against soft, blurry desert backgrounds. Her heart-tugging tale also folds in a succinct social-studies lesson, and a brief afterword explains the controversial "sport" of camel racing. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84507-982-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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