Melanie is blind. When her grandfather tells her of a healer who may be able to restore her sight, she begs to go to him. Instead, the grandfather undertakes the difficult journey alone- -beyond a great forest and across a bridge, below which lives a troll who turns wayfarers into gulls and keeps their gold—to fetch the healer, and doesn't come back. Melanie sets out to find him, negotiating the forest with the help of an elk, and unaffected by the troll's magic because she can't see him. The troll pulls her off the bridge, he drowns, she lives, and the gulls change back into people, one of whom is her grandfather. There is no healer, after all, but Melanie is content. Carrick (Whaling Days, 1993, etc.) includes all the elements of a good fairy tale except timing: There is too much labored description and too little plot, with most of the action condensed into a few paragraphs. Dianov's watercolors are framed in baroque swirls and packed with tactile details. Everything from the knobs on Melanie's spinning wheel to the troll's red shoelaces house is in sharp, bright focus—everything, that is, but the story. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1996
ISBN: 0-395-66555-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A Cinderella parody features the off-the-wall, whang-dang Texas hyperbole of Ketteman (The Year of No More Corn, 1993, etc.) and the insouciance of Warhola, who proves himself only too capable of creating a fairy godcow; that she's so appealingly whimsical makes it easy to accept the classic tale's inversions. The protagonist is Bubba, appropriately downtrodden and overworked by his wicked stepdaddy and loathsome brothers Dwayne and Milton, who spend their days bossing him around. The other half of the happy couple is Miz Lurleen, who owns ``the biggest spread west of the Brazos.'' She craves male companionship to help her work the place, ``and it wouldn't hurt if he was cute as a cow's ear, either.'' There are no surprises in this version except in the hilarious way the premise plays itself out and in Warhola's delightful visual surprises. When Lurleen tracks the bootless Bubba down, ``Dwayne and Milton and their wicked daddy threw chicken fits.'' Bubba and babe, hair as big as a Texas sun, ride off to a life of happy ranching, and readers will be proud to have been along for the courtship. (Picture book/folklore. 6-8)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-590-25506-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A disappointing exploration of career options from an entertainer who should know better. Maybe it has something to do with the decision to take the "Weird" out of his authorial name, but musical satirist Yankovic doesn't deliver the kind of precise zaniness adults of a certain generation will expect. Little Billy may be small in stature, but he doesn't limit his thinking when it comes to what he'll be when he grows up. As soon as Mrs. Krupp gives him the floor at show-and-tell, he grabs it and doesn't let go, reeling out a dizzying series of potential careers. Beginning with 12 rhyming couplets on what kind of a chef he might be, he follows up with snail trainer, machinist, giraffe milker, artist and on and on. At its best, the verse approaches Seussian: "maybe I'll be the lathe operator / Who makes the hydraulic torque wrench calibrator / Which fine-tunes the wrench that's specifically made / To retighten the nuts in the lateral blade." But the pacing never allows readers to stop and chuckle at the foolishness, and it doesn't leave enough room for Hargis' light, humorous cartoons to expand and ramp up the goof factor. In children's books, as in satire, less is more—here's hoping Weird Al's next effort is both tighter and funnier. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-192691-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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