A tousle-haired child reads, walks, tumbles, dances and flies through these pages. The child is soon joined by a puppy, and the two draw, fly kites and sail—into the sky and over the ocean, on the winds of imagination. The gentle text is rhythmic and sweet: “So many doors in all your days, / so much to wonder about. Who will you be and where will you go? / And how will you know?” McGhee’s understated words are elegant and sure rather than sappy or saccharine. Yoo’s pictures, linocuts digitally worked, make lovely images in a limited palette of greens, blues, browns and yellows. The child’s play is brilliantly rendered in the images: Jumping in a pile of leaves and then blowing on a handful of them finds the leaves flying away metamorphosed into birds; splashing in puddles and building a toy boat segues into a wild ocean ride with a whale. The parent’s voice in the narration is full of love and hope: “You are earth that hungers for sun. / You are song that longs to be sung.” (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4169-5847-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2009
Sloat collaborates with Huffman, a Yu’pik storyteller, to infuse a traditional “origins” tale with the joy of creating. Hearing the old women of her village grumble that they have only tasteless crowberries for the fall feast’s akutaq—described as “Eskimo ice cream,” though the recipe at the end includes mixing in shredded fish and lard—young Anana carefully fashions three dolls, then sings and dances them to life. Away they bound, to cover the hills with cranberries, blueberries, and salmonberries. Sloat dresses her smiling figures in mixes of furs and brightly patterned garb, and sends them tumbling exuberantly through grassy tundra scenes as wildlife large and small gathers to look on. Despite obtrusively inserted pronunciations for Yu’pik words in the text, young readers will be captivated by the action, and by Anana’s infectious delight. (Picture book/folktale. 6-8)
Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-88240-575-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your dreads! Isadora once again plies her hand using colorful, textured collages to depict her fourth fairy tale relocated to Africa. The narrative follows the basic story line: Taken by an evil sorceress at birth, Rapunzel is imprisoned in a tower; Rapunzel and the prince “get married” in the tower and she gets pregnant. The sorceress cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and tricks the prince, who throws himself from the tower and is blinded by thorns. The terse ending states: “The prince led Rapunzel and their twins to his kingdom, where they were received with great joy and lived happily every after.” Facial features, clothing, dreadlocks, vultures and the prince riding a zebra convey a generic African setting, but at times, the mixture of patterns and textures obfuscates the scenes. The textile and grain characteristic of the hewn art lacks the elegant romance of Zelinksy’s Caldecott version. Not a first purchase, but useful in comparing renditions to incorporate a multicultural aspect. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-24772-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
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