This introduction to inventions delivered in cartoony spreads with clomping verse falls on its face. Harper’s text is so bogged down in rhyme and meter that it crosses into inaccuracy. In telling how Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt sent back his french fries to Chef George Crum, Harper says “One day there was a customer. / Let’s say his name was Rick. / He ordered some of George’s fries / then said, “These are too thick!” (So Crum sliced them paper-thin and invented the potato chip). Harper’s choice to rename Vanderbilt “Rick” is perplexing (rhymes with thick?), and hardly forgivable for the small print on the verso that states “though all the facts have been verified to the best of the author’s ability, it should be noted that creative storytelling and imagination were also used to tell these tales.” Most kids will recognize the verses as awkwardly patched together (“Some inventions solve a problem, / like glasses to help you see, / Then there are others just for fun, / like skates or the Frisbee.”) Too bad, as the goofy paintings will appeal to the age group that is also fascinated by inventions of things like potato chips and chewing gum. Trivial “facts” noted in the margins will also appeal (e.g., under doughnuts, that “the most popular doughnut with kids is the chocolate frosted”), though nothing in the text does much to really explain how the item was invented. An acknowledged list of sources in a single paragraph is also located on the verso, in minute type. This seems designed to inspire rather than explain. Sadly, it does neither. (Nonfiction. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-316-34725-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Megan Tingley/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
Though told by two outsiders to the culture, this timely and well-crafted story will educate readers on the preciousness of...
An international story tackles a serious global issue with Reynolds’ characteristic visual whimsy.
Gie Gie—aka Princess Gie Gie—lives with her parents in Burkina Faso. In her kingdom under “the African sky, so wild and so close,” she can tame wild dogs with her song and make grass sway, but despite grand attempts, she can neither bring the water closer to home nor make it clean. French words such as “maintenant!” (now!) and “maman” (mother) and local color like the karite tree and shea nuts place the story in a French-speaking African country. Every morning, Gie Gie and her mother perch rings of cloth and large clay pots on their heads and walk miles to the nearest well to fetch murky, brown water. The story is inspired by model Georgie Badiel, who founded the Georgie Badiel Foundation to make clean water accessible to West Africans. The details in Reynolds’ expressive illustrations highlight the beauty of the West African landscape and of Princess Gie Gie, with her cornrowed and beaded hair, but will also help readers understand that everyone needs clean water—from the children of Burkina Faso to the children of Flint, Michigan.
Though told by two outsiders to the culture, this timely and well-crafted story will educate readers on the preciousness of potable water. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17258-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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