Despite the issues with the limping narrative, the illustrations successfully hold the story together while conjuring a...
A stone in a child’s shoe triggers an avalanche of small misfortunes.
From a canoe-paddling cricket to a disgruntled trout to a hungry but thwarted bird—all have had a perfectly fine day ruined by the pebble’s erratic trajectory. It’s unfortunate that Howell’s narrative poem also meanders erratically. The meter ricochets from stanza to stanza as it collides with a rhyming pattern that hiccups and stumbles its way through this circular tale. “ ‘Whoa!’ said the cricket. ‘A boulder—I’m sunk!’ / He dumped it, it dropped… // on a trout with a clunk. / ‘Ugh!’ said the trout. ‘This is too tough to chew!’ // He spat it, it soared… // toward a duck’s good-as-new flowered / umbrella she’d brought to the zoo.” These and other sentence constructions defy most read-aloud attempts. It’s unfortunate that they distract from Carr’s layered, cut-paper dioramas. The sepia-toned silhouettes convey remarkable depth of field, as in one double-page spread in which an ant pushes the boulder-sized pebble across a meadow, the field grasses in the foreground blurred while the ant and pebble in the rear of the image stand out crisply.
Despite the issues with the limping narrative, the illustrations successfully hold the story together while conjuring a wistful air of yesteryear. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9913866-5-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Ripple Grove
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A visually engaging but otherwise underwhelming take on a classic.
A retelling of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, set in the Alaskan tundra.
Prolific picture-book author and illustrator Brett depicts Alice with short black hair, tan skin, and a fur-lined parka, while Lewis Carroll’s well-known characters are recast in new guises: The Cheshire Cat and Queen of Hearts appear as a Smilodon (saber-toothed cat) and snowy owl, respectively. Progressing at a rapid-fire pace, the narrative follows key moments of the original plot, including Alice’s fall down the rabbit hole (located within a glacier here), her tea party with the Hatter and the March Hare (this time, with the Old Prospector and the Varying Hare), and a scene where several playing cards paint the roses red (instead, the cotton grass) at the Queen’s behest. Characteristic of Brett’s illustrative style, each spread is packed with detail. Observant readers will find much to explore, from the well-worn playing cards that line each page to the intricate Alaskan birds and mammals featured at every turn. Still, the hectic rhythm of the story might lose youngsters, and its ho-hum text flattens some of Carroll’s whimsy. Adults may be disappointed that Brett has chosen to highlight only the area’s animals and colonial history (the Prospector hearkens back to Alaska’s history of colonial encroachment), with no explicit mention of the land’s rich Indigenous nations and cultures.
A visually engaging but otherwise underwhelming take on a classic. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780593533888
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
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