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HOW THE ROOSTER GOT HIS CROWN

Name: HOW THE ROOSTER GOT HIS CROWN
Author: Amy Lowry Poole
ISBN: 0-8234-1389-6

adapted by Amy Lowry Poole & illustrated by Amy Lowry Poole ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 15, 1999

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A great combination: a cryptically amusing, ancient Chinese tale retold with verve and respect for the original, accompanied by stunningly beautiful, transporting artwork. Poole tackles the folktale about the rooster and how he got the funny-looking red thing on his head, setting it in the Miao Kingdom of western China. It all comes about because there are too many suns in the sky (which Poole represents with ancient icons, e.g., yin-yang, the spiral, the maze-like symbol for long life, the raven, a star). When the rains fail, the suns start to parch the earth. Wise men gather to debate a course of action and a clever and skillful archer is called from distant lands. He remedies the problem by shooting the suns’ reflection in a pond, but the one sun that survives is so scared it hides in a cave. Six suns were five too many, but the last one is essential. After others fail to coax the sun from the cave, the lowly rooster gives it a go, and the sun, bewitched by the rooster’s singular song, appears. Once the sun hears the peoples’ cheers, it relaxes and takes its place in the heavens. This story, with many gratifying elements to explore, and exquisite illustrations—folk-art paintings on textured paper—to behold, will keep on giving with each reading. (Picture book/folklore. 3-9)

Pub Date: March 15, 1999

ISBN: 0-8234-1389-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Holiday House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PEA BLOSSOM
adapted by Amy Lowry Poole & illustrated by Amy Lowry Poole

- BOOK REVIEW
THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
adapted by Amy Lowry Poole & illustrated by Amy Lowry Poole

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THE SINGING SNOWBEAR

by Carol Grigg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999

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Grigg complements her first story for children with soft-edged, cool-hued watercolors that powerfully evoke the white-bound north. This tale of the polar Snowbear opens with a call to adventure, the summons of the mythic hero. This is a song of such haunting beauty that the young bear must follow it to its source, and so he does, leaving his mother and setting off across the ice floes. “Maybe I can make those sounds and fill myself with songs,” he tells his mother, to which she lovingly growls in a guardian-at-the-gate manner, “Bears don’t sing.” The hero cycle, as Joseph Campbell delineated it, is followed nearly exactly, from the lyrical opening and through the unfolding of Snowbear’s journey. Snowbear struggles through challenges, as his path is wracked with not only loneliness and uncertainty, but also with very real physical and emotional pain. When he finally finds the singer, a whale, it is trapped in ice from which Snowbear must rescue him. Readers will be primed for something special; delivered, instead, is a ditty of a whale mother’s song in which the two new friends begin to harmonize. This awakens all the Arctic to a stomping, swaying response that lasts until dawn, but isn’t captured on the page; the expected sense of triumph in the hero’s return never emerges. After giving themselves up to a story with such glorious underpinnings, readers will be disappointed by the ending. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-395-94223-3

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT CHANGE
by White Deer of Autumn & illustrated by Carol Grigg

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PAULINE

by Georg Hallensleben ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 5, 1999

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Pauline (32 pp.; $16.00; Oct. 5; 0-374-35758-7) The illustrator of Kate Banks’s many books (The Bird, the Monkey, and the Snake in the Jungle, p. 62, etc,) goes solo for a tale that proves children’s suspicion that bigger isn’t always better. Pauline, a fuzzy-eared weasel, is an unlikely heroine, but her courage and dramatic talents combine to save her best friend Rabusius the elephant, trapped by hunters. The thick bold lines and lush colors of the illustrations infuse the story with an excitement and immediacy that will appeal to preschoolers. The spreads are presented from a weasel’s-eye-view are particularly captivating and reinforce Pauline’s small stature and mighty impact. (Picture book. 3-6.)