A joyful if simplistic celebration of Chinese New Year culture.
A kid tries to catch a good-luck dragon hiding around town as the family prepares for Chinese New Year following the formula established in How To Catch an Elf (2016) and other series installments.
After hearing Mom wish for a dragon to bring health and fortune for the new year, a boy (presumably Chinese) and several friends (of varying racial presentations) discover a dragon lurking about town. Among the Chinese-style architecture of the town buildings, they employ various fantastical lures related to Chinese culture to catch it, including a web of noodles and sticky rice, a giant red lantern, gold coins, and a dragon dance. The simple and often awkward rhyming quatrains leave no room for deeper insights into Chinese culture, but each stanza does include one or two highlighted words whose Chinese translation can then be found within the illustration. The entire text is translated into Simplified Chinese with Pinyin in the backmatter for cross-referencing. Elkerton’s digitally painted, colorful cartoon illustrations depict a diverse cast of modern-looking children against a backdrop of a traditional Chinese village. Ultimately, despite the protagonist’s failure to catch the dragon, it is being within the embrace of a loving family (depicted as a mother and a grandmother) that is the luckiest of all.
A joyful if simplistic celebration of Chinese New Year culture. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-9369-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A wandering effort, happy but pointless.
The perfect book for kids who love dragons and mild tacos.
Rubin’s story starts with an incantatory edge: “Hey, kid! Did you know that dragons love tacos? They love beef tacos and chicken tacos. They love really big gigantic tacos and tiny little baby tacos as well.” The playing field is set: dragons, tacos. As a pairing, they are fairly silly, and when the kicker comes in—that dragons hate spicy salsa, which ignites their inner fireworks—the silliness is sillier still. Second nature, after all, is for dragons to blow flames out their noses. So when the kid throws a taco party for the dragons, it seems a weak device that the clearly labeled “totally mild” salsa comes with spicy jalapenos in the fine print, prompting the dragons to burn down the house, resulting in a barn-raising at which more tacos are served. Harmless, but if there is a parable hidden in the dragon-taco tale, it is hidden in the unlit deep, and as a measure of lunacy, bridled or unbridled, it doesn’t make the leap into the outer reaches of imagination. Salmieri’s artwork is fitting, with a crabbed, ethereal line work reminiscent of Peter Sís, but the story does not offer it enough range.
A wandering effort, happy but pointless. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3680-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A handsome edition of an old favorite.
The familiar cumulative game is played by four children, along with their father and their dog, at the typically British beach pictured on the lovely, expansive first endpaper.
The children's real activities are shown in b&w drawings; the imaginative doings appear in full color. Although some of the color pages show perfectly possible events, most are clearly fantasy, suggesting just how close the two may be in children's minds. The family ends up in safe retreat in one big cozy bed; the bear is seen--on the second essential, beautiful endpaper--headed into a gloomy sea. Oxenbury's splendid watercolors and drawings perfectly evoke both landscape and the members of the questing family.
A handsome edition of an old favorite. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1989
ISBN: 978-0-689-50476-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1989
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