Handsomely illustrated with cut-paper art by Wisniewski (The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups, 1998, etc.), this homage to tools from Clements (Frindle, 1996, etc.) conveys a sense of their beauty and mystery. The making of an old-fashioned carousel is the never-mentioned, ever-present event as a baker’s dozen of tools—ruler, saw, grinder, screwdriver, wrench, etc.—and the toolbox are introduced in a few lines each, one to each spread. The clipped text evokes not just the attributes of the tool—that the wrench wrestles with its work, that the axe finds the board that hides in the log—but a hint, if fanciful, of their character: drills are patient, rulers know, knives are edgy, the toolbox remembers. The text is occasionally staccato (“Toolbox carries tools home. Workshop is home”) but mostly has a good poetic pulse. The illustrations are pure entertainment, slowly revealing that the workmen and apprentice are using their fine old tools to put together a turn-of-the-century carousel. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 19, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-85579-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
PLB 0-7868-2125-6 As is true for Pam Conrad’s Tub People, the events in a matryoshka doll’s life depend on external manipulations and circumstances; in this case, it makes the story of a perilous journey fall somewhat flat. A set of the nesting dolls is carved in a Russian village and then sent to a toy shop in America. The outer doll, Anna, has been instructed by the maker to watch over her siblings—“Keep your sisters safe inside you”—but there is nothing she can do when the smallest doll, Nina, is accidentally brushed off the counter and unceremoniously kicked out the door. It is an odyssey in which she has absolutely no active part, nor does she have reactions, for all she possesses is a blank matryoshka face. In the meantime, a young girl who has bought the rest of the set on sale charmingly tucks a little wad of cotton into the next-to-smallest doll so she won’t feel empty. Brown’s atmospheric but docile watercolors often view the matryoshka dolls from a distance, furthering the sense that the story is about events surrounding the dolls, instead of the dolls themselves. An author’s note on the history of matryoshkas is a welcome touch. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7868-0153-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
In The Palm Of Darkness ($21.00; May 1997; 192 pp.; 0-06-018703- 4): A Cuban writers's intensely imaginative portrait of the extremities of Haitian culture rings some fresh changes on the overfamiliar theme of intellectual arrogance humbled by its collision with ``elemental'' peasant wisdom. Montero subtly builds up a revealing contrast between Victor Griggs, a European herpetologist searching for the remaining specimens of an endangered species of amphibian, and his native guide Thierry Adrien's memories of his family's encounter with the island's ubiquitous spirits. This truly original novel is studded with surprises—not least of which is the concept of a species suddenly and entirely disappearing in a milieu where the living and the dead are known to mingle together more or less matter-of-factly. A refreshingly sophisticated treat. (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-018703-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
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