Darkness enchants these well-wrought tales.
In this debut children’s book, a young girl hears wonderful tales and goes on a quest through a magic land to break a dragon’s spell, discovering treasure on the way.
Concerned with her rag doll Belinda and hopes of getting a hamster, Asia is much like any little girl getting ready for first grade. But then one night, seven laughing, magical children take her to a nearby cave where an old woman, Grandmama, tells Asia stories about fantastical things: the Great Mother, the maiden, the unicorn, the hunter and the dragon, the stone baby, and many more. Fairyland, it seems, is in danger, and Asia is the special child who can help restore the true princess, foil three evil witches, and defeat the dragon. Along the way, she’s aided by fairyland friends, as when they give her a beautiful rainbow “dress of leaping magic” that allows her to float and fly. By the end, Asia comes to understand the power she possesses. Asia’s story, though, is really a framework for a collection of original fairy tales that can stand on their own. In fact, the framework adds a puzzling note; this North American fairyland is awfully European, with its castles, kings and queen, blond hair and blue eyes. Also, Hirsch’s children don’t always sound childlike: one asks, “Are we being mischievous?” to which Asia replies, “I do not think so.” But these points fade behind the pleasure of Hirsch’s stories, which have the intriguing, authentic ring of classic fairy tales. They call upon similar themes (animal helpers, witches, doubles, enchantments) and techniques (repetition, rhyme) while creating something strange and new. Though there’s an occasional foray into twee, Hirsch’s gleeful and mischievous fairies have an appropriate sense of anarchy about them. The tales tap into fairy-tale darkness as well: “Beaten before she could fight…the dragon coiled up in a bitter rage, closed her eyes and slept.” Hirsch’s imagery has real magic, as when a wicked fairy shows her victims a broken mirror, “making them feel lonely and ugly till their hearts would break with sorrow.”
Darkness enchants these well-wrought tales.Pub Date: June 12, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 171
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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