The lion atop the Eiffel Tower, mane blowing in the wind, captures the essence of this artful, whimsical delight.
This oversized book about a bored young lion who visits Paris to find “a job, love and a future” is worth every bit of paper and ink.
The book opens vertically, with sparse, large-type text on each top page and complex artwork below. The sturdiness of the paper allows young hands to turn pages repeatedly and to pore over each carefully rendered illustration, a lion’s share of mixed media that includes architectural renderings of Parisian hot spots, tiny photographs of people and, on every page, the large protagonist, sporting a huge bushlike mane and a great variety of engagingly human expressions. As the lion roams Paris, he is unhappy about the lack of attention he draws, even when he roars. He hits rock bottom when a rainstorm turns him “grey and shiny like the roofs around him.” But urban apathy eventually subsides, and love comes in the form of a young girl’s adoring eyes, which follow him. (Only the youngest of viewers will lose the joke: That lover is the Mona Lisa.) The lion soon finds his job and his future, with vocabulary that refuses to condescend: A plinth in the middle of a square offers him his perfect vocation. Children will feel more sophisticated than the lion, who makes such mistakes as confusing baguettes with swords.
The lion atop the Eiffel Tower, mane blowing in the wind, captures the essence of this artful, whimsical delight. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-84976-171-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tate/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
A tender bedtime tale set in a too-seldom-seen northern world.
A quiet book for putting young children to bed in a state of snowy wonder.
The magic of the north comes alive in a picture book featuring Inuit characters. In the sky at nighttime, snow falls fast. / … / In the sky at nighttime, a raven roosts atop a tall building. / … / In the sky at nighttime, a mother’s delicate song to her child arises like a gentle breeze.” With the repetition of the simple, titular refrain, the author envisions what happens in a small town at night: Young children see their breath in the cold; a hunter returns on his snowmobile; the stars dazzle in the night sky. A young mother rocks her baby to sleep with a song and puts the tot down with a trio of stuffed animals: hare, polar bear, seal. The picture book evokes a feeling of peace as the street lamps, northern lights, and moon illuminate the snow. The illustrations are noteworthy for the way they meld the old world with what it looks like to be a modern Indigenous person: A sled dog and fur-lined parkas combine easily with the frame houses, a pickup truck, power lines, and mobile-hung crib. By introducing Indigenous characters in an unremarkably familiar setting, the book reaches children who don’t always see themselves in an everyday context.
A tender bedtime tale set in a too-seldom-seen northern world. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77227-238-3
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Inhabit Media
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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