Small bird, big thoughts. Greatness achieved.
Can thinking change the world? Just ask Henry Finch!
One quiet night Henry—depicted, like the rest of his relentlessly chatty flock, with a red fingerprint and a few expressive black lines—startles awake with the realization that he is self-aware. Moreover, he can think. Lots of different things! He likes it! “I could be great,” he thinks. Spotting the crocodilian Beast who has chowed down on so many of his relatives and recklessly thinking that the time for greatness has arrived, he attacks. This turns out to be a mistake, but heading down the Beast’s gullet, reasoning his way from “I am” to broad cycles of birth and death, he hears the Beast thinking about its own family and needs. Not only does he persuade it to change its diet and release him and the other small creatures trapped in its gut, he flies up to free all of his fellow birds from their clouds of unknowing. Off they soar on ambitious quests of their own, leaving Henry smiling a “finch smile.” Using only very simply drawn figures and changing the color field for “interior” shots to white on solid black, Schwarz conveys Henry’s simple outer and rather more complex inner worlds with a visual boldness that amplifies the exhilaration of his Cartesian epiphany. Henry will be a hero, and not just to readers of a philosophical feather.
Small bird, big thoughts. Greatness achieved. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7812-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Inspiration, shrink wrapped.
From an artist, poet, and Instagram celebrity, a pep talk for all who question where a new road might lead.
Opening by asking readers, “Have you ever wanted to go in a different direction,” the unnamed narrator describes having such a feeling and then witnessing the appearance of a new road “almost as if it were magic.” “Where do you lead?” the narrator asks. The Road’s twice-iterated response—“Be a leader and find out”—bookends a dialogue in which a traveler’s anxieties are answered by platitudes. “What if I fall?” worries the narrator in a stylized, faux hand-lettered type Wade’s Instagram followers will recognize. The Road’s dialogue and the narration are set in a chunky, sans-serif type with no quotation marks, so the one flows into the other confusingly. “Everyone falls at some point, said the Road. / But I will always be there when you land.” Narrator: “What if the world around us is filled with hate?” Road: “Lead it to love.” Narrator: “What if I feel stuck?” Road: “Keep going.” De Moyencourt illustrates this colloquy with luminous scenes of a small, brown-skinned child, face turned away from viewers so all they see is a mop of blond curls. The child steps into an urban mural, walks along a winding country road through broad rural landscapes and scary woods, climbs a rugged metaphorical mountain, then comes to stand at last, Little Prince–like, on a tiny blue and green planet. Wade’s closing claim that her message isn’t meant just for children is likely superfluous…in fact, forget the just.
Inspiration, shrink wrapped. (Picture book. 6-8, adult)Pub Date: March 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-26949-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2021
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