This longer Christmas story is set in the old West on the small ranch of a widow named Della and her son, Evan. On Christmas Eve, they are waiting for the annual arrival of their storytelling cowboy friend, Cully, who collapses from illness and falls from his horse into the snow on a ridge overlooking the ranch. A bright shooting star leads Evan and his mother to Cully, who is successfully rescued and nursed back to health. Walking with Evan’s ma and some quality time with the family make it clear that the cowboy has changed and sure enough, he decides to quit the trail. It’s Evan who talks him out of moving to Mexico and points the way to marrying his ma and staying right there. While the plot is melodramatic and somewhat predictable, Woods tells the tale with a sure hand, just as Cully recounts his cowboy adventures to Della and Evan in front of the fireplace. Florczak’s (The Magic Fishbone, not reviewed, etc.) sumptuous full-page paintings add greatly to the overall effect, with varying perspectives and clever use of shadows. (One memorable illustration shows three shocked cowboys interrupted at their dinner of beans and coffee with the looming shadow of a bear falling across the page.) This super-sized volume has a thoughtful design with the text printed on ivory paper with a narrow rust border, adding an old-fashioned touch to a story that will be popular wherever young cowboys hang their hats. (Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82190-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Die-hard Beatles fans may enjoy it, but it’s likely to leave others cold.
Contemplate life and loss in this illustrated adaptation of the Beatles’ hit.
As the book opens, a female-presenting protagonist with brown skin and puffy dark hair is gifted a pink bicycle. She practices riding with a taller, also female-presenting friend, sibling, or caregiver with straight black hair and pale skin. As the duo treks around their seaside home, subtle hints suggest the passage of time. Hats are replaced by beachwear and then scarves; training wheels disappear, and the bike is replaced with a more grown-up model, this time in blue. As the lyrics reference the friends and lovers, of whom “some are dead, and some are living,” the older character is seen fading and then disappears altogether, suggesting the protagonist now has only the memory of a lost companion. The protagonist ages and has a young daughter, and the cycle continues—but readers who surmised that the older companion had died will be puzzled to see what seems to be the same character, seemingly alive but now with graying hair, emerge to welcome the protagonist and daughter. The color palette is inviting, but the characters are illustrated with large black dots for eyes—an unsettling choice reminiscent of the Other Mother from Neal Gaiman’s Coraline (2002) that may well create an emotional disconnect. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Die-hard Beatles fans may enjoy it, but it’s likely to leave others cold. (Picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6585-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
You can always tell when the cooks have added a special touch of TLC to a recipe. In this case, a could-have-been standard cumulative tale of a fatherly farmer collecting apples and baking a pie is made extraordinary by its fine folk art/folksong sensibilities, its particularly appetizing apple-pie palette of crusty golden-brown, buttery cream, apple-red and cast-iron black and by the artist’s inspired use of line. Bean’s art, which he acknowledges is “strongly influenced by the work of Virginia Lee Burton and Wanda Gag,” is a lively and life-full song of its own, an organic and curvilinear concoction in which circles of visual narrative build upon each other just as Thompson’s toothsome text builds upon itself, until readers are cuddled up in a homespun, apple-shaped embrace. Thompson again proves herself a master of mixing up a treat—warm, sweet and satisfying; Bean, who explains his multi-step creative process in a note, is someone to watch. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4169-1240-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
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