An unsettling outing, with none of the dreamy lyricism that illuminated the artist’s earlier Night Eater (2004).
This tale of a harsh pet-store owner who turns over a new leaf would be uplifting were it not so frightening.
The exotic animals in surly Mr. Walnut’s emporium get a new lease on life after young Mina sneaks in and releases them one night. Because they take his prized wig with them, he becomes a fearful, lonely shut-in, until he is struck by the notion that he could re-create his animals as plush toys. He stops caring that he’s bald and becomes so jolly that Mina and the animals come back to help. Though supposedly transformed, Mr. Walnut remains a visually scary figure from start to finish in Juan’s richly hued, mildly surrealistic scenes. Not only does he sport huge black eyebrows that look like hairy spiders from the outset, but in a misguided sign of his change, a pair of beady, staring eyes suddenly appear in their midst partway along. Worse yet, in the climactic scene, the smiling animals present him with a Christmas gift that is a near-life-size doll portrait—crudely stitched together and bearing sinister-looking button eyes embedded in thick sprays of black. (In Coraline's world, it would be the Other Mr. Walnut, a truly horrific notion.) It’s enough to give even fairly sturdy readers a sharp case of megrims.
An unsettling outing, with none of the dreamy lyricism that illuminated the artist’s earlier Night Eater (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-545-12810-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sparse if nutritious (at least valuewise) gathering.
Ten fables with pretty pictures and explicit, if not always apt, morals.
Recast from unspecified originals, this collection of minitales opens with the titular vision of hungry pandas seated around two tables and holding very long chopsticks—a version of which appeared previously in the author’s Chinese Zoo (1987). They solve the problem of how to eat by feeding one another with their 3-foot chopsticks. Its moral—“Be generous. It brings happiness to everyone”—seems a little off-target given that nobody’s giving away any food that belongs to them. Hubris is examined in an encounter between a kite and a butterfly (“Hello butterfly! I am so much higher than you! Aren’t you just a little bit jealous of me?”) and another between a proud river and the huge but humble ocean. Humility also features in the moral to the story of a turtle who “flies” on a stick lifted by birds until he opens his mouth. Since he’s cast as garrulous rather than proud and lands in a lake as he wanted to do rather than dying, there’s not much cautionary force to the episode. Creatures drawn with delicate, calligraphic strokes float in negative space on the pages within patterned borders, and though details in some stories aren’t depicted literally, the art adds a vivacious energy to each episode.
A sparse if nutritious (at least valuewise) gathering. (Picture book/folklore. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-937786-16-8
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Wisdom Tales
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
The runt of the litter of print titles and websites covering the topic.
This tally of presidential pets reads like a school report (for all that the author is a journalist for Fox Business Network) and isn’t helped by its suite of amateurish illustrations.
Barnes frames the story with a teacher talking to her class and closes it with quizzes and a write-on “ballot.” Presidents from Washington to Obama—each paired to mentions of birds, dogs, livestock, wild animals and other White House co-residents—parade past in a rough, usually undated mix of chronological order and topical groupings. The text is laid out in monotonous blocks over thinly colored scenes that pose awkwardly rendered figures against White House floors or green lawns. In evident recognition that the presidents might be hard to tell apart, on some (but not enough) pages they carry identifying banners. The animals aren’t so differentiated; an unnamed goat that William Henry Harrison is pulling along with his cow Sukey in one picture looks a lot like one that belonged to Benjamin Harrison, and in some collective views, it’s hard to tell which animals go with which first family.
The runt of the litter of print titles and websites covering the topic. (bibliography, notes for adult readers) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62157-035-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Patriot Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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