In this sprightly Southern rendition of a familiar folktale, Georgy Piney Woods sets out to trade a “rail-skinny horse” for a “shiny silver dollar” to buy his daughter Georgianne a wedding dress. He does get that dollar in the end—but not before he swaps the horse for a cow, the cow for a hound dog and so on through a few more seemingly bad bargains. Miller employs a down-home diction that revels in its orality: “ ‘Got no silver dollar,’ said the old woman. Her old hound dog hooowled. ‘I can surely use a cow.’ ” Brisk pacing and cliffhanger page turns make this a natural for either telling or reading, and Hillenbrand’s bright scenes of a smiling peddler in rustic dress striding through field, forest and swamp in search of the next transaction add plenty of color and spirit. Consider as a fresh and funny alternative to George Shannon’s Piney Woods Peddler (1981) or the various singleton versions of “Hans in Luck.” (Picture book/folktale. 6-9)
Pub Date: March 15, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8234-1836-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2009
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As atmospheric as its companion, Twilight Comes Twice, this tone poem pairs poetically intense writing with luminescent oils featuring widely spaced houses, open lawns, and clumps of autumnal trees, all lit by a huge full moon. Fletcher tracks that moon’s nocturnal path in language rich in metaphor: “With silent slippers / it climbs the night stairs,” “staining earth and sky with a ghostly glow,” lighting up a child’s bedroom, the wings of a small plane, moonflowers, and, ranging further afield, harbor waves and the shells of turtle hatchlings on a beach. Using creamy brushwork and subtly muted colors, Kiesler depicts each landscape, each night creature from Luna moths to a sleepless child and her cat, as well as the great moon sweeping across star-flecked skies, from varied but never vertiginous angles. Closing with moonset, as dawn illuminates the world with a different kind of light, this makes peaceful reading either in season, or on any moonlit night. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2003
ISBN: 0-618-16451-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0792-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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