by Adrienne Geoghegan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 1999
Small, saucy Martha is not a child to put in pink. She wears black-and-white, highly graphic dresses, including one long-sleeved number with a bull’s-eye on the belly. She has mastered the management of her boring goldfish, somnolent cat, and clueless dog, and she opines that it is high time to acquire a large, ugly monster. Forthwith, she marches out with her piggy-bank. The nearest pet shop stocks only small monsters, but one green fellow has an pleasingly awful grin. It’s a done deal: “Keep the pig,” Martha says as she exits with her purchase. Martha knows that the monster eats only wood, but she doesn’t know that twigs will be followed by branches, planks from the dog’s dismantled kennel, her bed legs, and her bottom drawer. As the monster grows, so does its appetite, until the only place left to put it is in the wardrobe—which it promptly eats. Enough is enough for Martha, but the pet shop man offers only exchanges; against his advice, Martha selects an egg with green and purple splotches. As the original monster gets pushed out the back door, readers will delight in the dreadful possibilities inherent in this twist. It’s a romp of a tale to read aloud, with a tongue-in-cheek text; the vigorous pictures more than support and extend this illustrious excursion into the consequences of pet ownership. (Picture book. 3-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 7, 1999
ISBN: 1-57505-414-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lerner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999
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by Corinne Demas Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999
PLB 0-7868-2125-6 As is true for Pam Conrad’s Tub People, the events in a matryoshka doll’s life depend on external manipulations and circumstances; in this case, it makes the story of a perilous journey fall somewhat flat. A set of the nesting dolls is carved in a Russian village and then sent to a toy shop in America. The outer doll, Anna, has been instructed by the maker to watch over her siblings—“Keep your sisters safe inside you”—but there is nothing she can do when the smallest doll, Nina, is accidentally brushed off the counter and unceremoniously kicked out the door. It is an odyssey in which she has absolutely no active part, nor does she have reactions, for all she possesses is a blank matryoshka face. In the meantime, a young girl who has bought the rest of the set on sale charmingly tucks a little wad of cotton into the next-to-smallest doll so she won’t feel empty. Brown’s atmospheric but docile watercolors often view the matryoshka dolls from a distance, furthering the sense that the story is about events surrounding the dolls, instead of the dolls themselves. An author’s note on the history of matryoshkas is a welcome touch. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7868-0153-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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by Mayra Montero & translated by Edith Grossman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1997
In The Palm Of Darkness ($21.00; May 1997; 192 pp.; 0-06-018703- 4): A Cuban writers's intensely imaginative portrait of the extremities of Haitian culture rings some fresh changes on the overfamiliar theme of intellectual arrogance humbled by its collision with ``elemental'' peasant wisdom. Montero subtly builds up a revealing contrast between Victor Griggs, a European herpetologist searching for the remaining specimens of an endangered species of amphibian, and his native guide Thierry Adrien's memories of his family's encounter with the island's ubiquitous spirits. This truly original novel is studded with surprises—not least of which is the concept of a species suddenly and entirely disappearing in a milieu where the living and the dead are known to mingle together more or less matter-of-factly. A refreshingly sophisticated treat. (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-018703-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
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by Mayra Montero & translated by Edith Grossman
BOOK REVIEW
by Mayra Montero & translated by Edith Grossman
BOOK REVIEW
by Mayra Montero & translated by Edith Grossman
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