A beautiful, powerful addition to the pantheon of feminist folktale reimaginings.
A graphic reimagining of three classic Indonesian fairy tales that center their female protagonists.
Three folktales are told in three chapters, in different color palettes, separated by spot-illustrated title pages. In “Keong Mas (Golden Snail),” an eldest princess is transformed into a snail after manipulating her selection as the prince’s bride. She must reflect on her actions and empathize with others to break the curse. In “Bawang Merah Bawang Putih (Shallot Garlic),” two sisters have to seek their own happiness when tragedy strikes their blended family. In “Timun Mas (Golden Cucumber),” a healer and her supernaturally born daughter use their knowledge and talents to outwit a monstrous being. Curving, swirling lines convey movement against the backdrop of Indonesian villages and landscapes, highlighting the characters’ connections to sea and land. Backmatter includes a prose version of each story, and the author’s note describes Angkasa’s motivations for examining women’s roles and relationships in fairy tales beyond reductive tropes, as active agents in shaping their own destinies; she aims to empower readers to question perceived self and societal limitations. Illustrations and terminology hold cultural and environmental texture, some broadly Indonesian, some regionally specific, such as details of clothing, furniture, and rice paddies. With dialogue written in clear, modern language, this collection will be broadly accessible.
A beautiful, powerful addition to the pantheon of feminist folktale reimaginings. (three “original stories” with illustrations) (Graphic fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780823449781
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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