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
One of the watershed moments in African-American history—the defeat of James Braddock at the hands of Joe Louis—is here given an earnest picture-book treatment. Despite his lack of athletic ability, Sammy wants desperately to be a great boxer, like his hero, getting boxing lessons from his friend Ernie in exchange for help with schoolwork. However hard he tries, though, Sammy just can’t box, and his father comforts him, reminding him that he doesn’t need to box: Joe Louis has shown him that he “can be the champion at anything [he] want[s].” The high point of this offering is the big fight itself, everyone crowded around the radio in Mister Jake’s general store, the imagined fight scenes played out in soft-edged sepia frames. The main story, however, is so bent on providing Sammy and the reader with object lessons that all subtlety is lost, as Mister Jake, Sammy’s father, and even Ernie hammer home the message. Both text and oil-on-canvas-paper illustrations go for the obvious angle, making the effort as a whole worthy, but just a little too heavy-handed. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58430-161-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
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