Readers may find this book confusing and difficult to follow, though it does effectively evoke the turbulence of both a...
Rabbit, Alex’s “most favourite stuffed toy,” has hopped out the window and is now gone. In a city flooded after days of endless rain, Alex sets out to rescue Rabbit.
The river has burst its banks, the dam is overflowing, and the water is rising. Amid this chaotic setting—depicted in equally chaotic mixed-media artwork—Alex climbs into a watermelon boat to find Rabbit. Alex appears to be a white child roughly sketched out in pencil, the outline cut out, and then collaged. Told from the child’s point of view, the book is more a description of the people, animals, objects, and situations encountered along the way than it is a story. A cat is stuck on a roof with nothing to eat. A woman and her dog are cooking on top of their house. Shops are being looted. Objects and memories are being washed away forever. Confusion reigns, and the only thing Alex can do is continue the search for Rabbit. At times arbitrary, at times whimsical, at times scary, the story meanders along with Alex. Eventually, Rabbit is found, and the two friends climb up a twisting ladder and end up back home. Alex wishes for blue skies and sunshine so a tree can be planted and the birds can come back when the tree grows. The text is set in a variety of typefaces and styles, as chaotic as the artwork and the situation.
Readers may find this book confusing and difficult to follow, though it does effectively evoke the turbulence of both a cityscape and a child’s emotions after a flood. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-74331-007-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An unusual offering for the young geology nerd.
This British import is an imaginatively constructed sequence of images that show a white boy examining a city pavement, clearly in London, and the sights he would see if he were able to travel down to the Earth’s core and then back again to the surface.
The geologic layers are depicted in 10 vertical spreads that require a 90-degree turn to be read and include endpapers, which open out, concertina fashion, to show the interior of the Earth to its core. Beneath the urban setting are drains, pipes, and artifacts of urban infrastructure. Below that, archaeological relics are revealed. An Underground train speeds by, and below it, a stalactite-encrusted cave yawns. Deep below the Earth’s crust, magma, the Earth’s mantle, and the inner core are shown. Turn the page to start going up again, back through the mantle to the crust, where precious minerals are revealed, then fossils, tree roots, and animal burrows, ending with the same boy in the English countryside. The painted, stenciled, and collaged illustrations are full-bleed, and the tones graduate pleasantly from light colors at the surface of the Earth to rich pinks, yellows, and oranges as readers near the Earth’s core. The text is informative, if lacking in poetry, including such nuggets as “earthworms are expert recyclers, eating dead plants in the soil.”
An unusual offering for the young geology nerd. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68297-136-9
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Words & Pictures
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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
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