A quirky existential adventure for thoughtful readers.
Faced with sudden life changes, a boy blindly rushes into a deserted construction site and falls into a hole.
Danny comes home from school one day to discover that his parents have boxed up all his possessions, given his dog Thwack away and are separating to pursue their artistic dreams. Understandably infected with a “terrible energy” that sends him pelting down the street, he is too distracted to watch his step. As a result, he finds himself at the bottom of a steep-walled pit, with no cellphone service and only the contents of his backpack for supplies. Being generally a levelheaded sort (“His parents always said he was practical, as if it were some kind of defect”), he takes inventory, does his homework, turns a garbage bag into a shelter—and, along with thinking his own thoughts, has some therapeutic interchanges with a chatty mole and a treacherous snake. Rescued the next day, he emerges to what seems a bright, new world, and though his repentant parents have put everything back the way it was, he lets them know that it’s OK to move on. Despite the talking animals, it’s more Robinson Crusoe than Alice in Wonderland, with comical dialogue and occasional cartoon illustrations lightening the emotional load.
A quirky existential adventure for thoughtful readers. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-55498-311-7
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Children, brave or otherwise, in search of classic stories have plenty of other choices.
Pretty illustrations accompany seven tales from Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, Oscar Wilde, and other European writers.
Though all but Wilde’s “The Selfish Giant” do revolve around brave young people, the stories are significantly abridged and have been edited with a distinct lack of courage. They are so stripped of religious references, for instance, that the “Three Golden Hairs” are plucked from the chin of Hades rather than the devil, and Wilde’s giant is promised Paradise by a “child of love” with unmarked palms. On the other hand, “Vassilissa” still allows the flaming skull from Baba Yaga to burn her cruel stepfamily to death, and the stripped-down version of Andersen’s “The Wild Swans” actually improves on the original by switching out the walnut oil the evil stepmother uses in the original to transform Princess Elisa into a brown-skinned outcast for a generic “foul ointment” that just makes her unrecognizable. But Hades is the only member of Plumbe’s otherwise all-White cast with broad features and dark skin, and the artist’s tidy tableaux of stolid figures in medieval garb follow the overall lead of the stories by going for the safely bland. In the cursory author bios at the end Wilde is tagged as “controversial” without explanation, presumably embedded as a code word for adults with parochial values. But the attached ribbon bookmark is pretty.
Children, brave or otherwise, in search of classic stories have plenty of other choices. (Folk & fairy tales. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-78250-671-3
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Floris
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
A challenging exercise in decoding strong human emotions—but worth the effort.
From the Netherlands via New Zealand, 10 short stories with casts of animal characters examine varying aspects of anger, whether overt, subtle, or suppressed.
In the first tale, a firebelly toad’s anger takes the form of harsh and violent attacks on other animals, causing them great pain. The toad demands expressions of anger from the victims but perceives their anger as not real or strong enough. The victims are upset because they cannot understand the immensity of the firebelly toad’s anger. In another story, a squirrel is sad that his ant friend has gone away; he cannot be angry but waits patiently for the ant’s return—but his anger is displaced, strangely enough, onto the walls of his home. Most of the tales involve animals in varying stages of anger, some directing it inward, some lashing out at others, some fearing another’s anger, and some letting it go. Many of the male animals are actively aggressive, while many of the females display stereotypes. The ant needs to be rescued, the praying mantis is a fashionista, and the frog displays jealousy. Boutavant’s rich, nuanced illustrations depict the animals as expressing human emotions and living in humanlike dwellings while still remaining true to their species in appearance. Youngsters might be quite perplexed by the tales, for Tellegen rarely provides clues to the characters’ motivations and often leaves readers to arrive at their own conclusions. They would be well served by reading and discussing the work with a loving grown-up.
A challenging exercise in decoding strong human emotions—but worth the effort. (Illustrated stories. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-776573-45-5
Page Count: 82
Publisher: Gecko Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
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