Using clunky declarative sentences, Guillot tries to convey a sense of life in modern China, mediated through its history, with this story of a young girl, Li, and her encounter with a pre-Mao ghost. Although Li’s mother works in a gongchang, she also makes lifu on the side for a little extra kuai (Guillot exasperatingly shovels these words into the text; the meanings are not always clear from the context, and whistling back and forth between the text and glossary shatters the flow of the story). Li is asked to take a special lifu (formal dress) to a client in Shanghai. While on the way by bike, Li daydreams her way into a crash with another cyclist. Lying, near death, on the roadway, Li is visited by her ghost, who saves her so she may deliver a message to his family. It transpires that the ghost was a union man in 1920s Shanghai who was rubbed out by gangsters who worked for the dockyard owners. Thus elements of Chinese history (fleshed out in an author’s note) are laced into the story, as are ethics, such as the justice Li brings to the ghost’s family by delivering the message, and the virtue and propriety of her act. The story has promise, not least for its fine artwork that provides a glimpse into daily life, but the delivery is so stilted, its effectiveness is cut by half. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8109-4129-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999
PLB 0-688-13166-2 King Midas And The Golden Touch ($16.00; PLB $15.63; Apr.; 32 pp.; 0-688-13165-4; PLB 0-688-13166-2): The familiar tale of King Midas gets the golden touch in the hands of Craft and Craft (Cupid and Psyche, 1996). The author takes her inspiration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s retelling, capturing the essence of the tale with the use of pithy dialogue and colorful description. Enchanting in their own right, the illustrations summon the Middle Ages as a setting, and incorporate colors so lavish that when they are lost to the uniform gold spurred by King Midas’s touch, the point of the story is further burnished. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-13165-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
The way-off-road vehicle (The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field, 1997, etc.) tours the ears, eyes, nose, and skin when the assistant principal, Mr. Wilde, accidentally shrinks the school bus and the children on board, commandeering it to deliver a message to Ms. Frizzle. The vehicle plunges into the eye of a police officer, where the students explore the pupil, the cornea, the retina, and the optic nerve leading to the brain. Then it’s on to other senses, via the ear of a small child, the nose of a dog, and the tongue of the Friz herself. Sidebars and captions add to the blizzard of information here; with a combination of plot, details, and jokes, the trip is anything but dull. The facts will certainly entice readers to learn more about the ways living creatures perceive the world. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-44697-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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