This small story, written in 1949, illustrated in the ’70s, and recently translated into English, is a sweet, though strange, one about imaginary friends and homely reality. A little girl named Barbara talks about her imaginary twin sister, Lalla-Lee, who is queen in the Golden Hall beneath the rose bush in the garden. Lalla-Lee is hers alone, for her father likes her mother best, and her mother dotes on her little brother. The girls play with their black poodles, Ruff and Duff, and their little white rabbits, ride upon their horses Goldfoot and Silverfoot, escape from the Frights in the Great Horrible Forest, and eat caramels and cookies from the Kind Ones in the meadow. Lalla-Lee tells Barbara that when the rose bush dies, so will she. When Barbara reluctantly returns home from under the rose bush, she finds that her parents have gotten her a poodle just like Ruff, and with that addition to her life, the rose has withered and the hole to the Golden Hall has disappeared. The illustrations are fanciful and a wee bit pyschedelic, etched in the acid colors of their time, full of flowers (some with faces), anthropomorphized birds and beasts, and lots of vernal squiggles. An odd take on childhood needs from the recently deceased Lindgren, whose Pippi said it so much better. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 5, 2002
ISBN: 91-29-65502-1
Page Count: 28
Publisher: R&S/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...
Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.
The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-934133-57-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Mackinac Island Press
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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