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FALLING ANGELS

Name: FALLING ANGELS
Author: Colin Thompson
ISBN: 0-09-176817-9

by Colin Thompson & illustrated by Colin Thompson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2001

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A gentle fantasy about seeing with your heart as well as your eyes. Sally could always fly, and although her mother doesn’t believe it, her grandmother knows it to be true. As her grandmother is confined to bed, Sally brings her orchids from Africa, a shell from Patagonia, even snow from “where no one had ever walked.” Finally her grandmother flies with her, to her favorite place, where she takes her last breath. Sally never stops flying even when she grows up, and she flies with her children and grandchildren, too. The metaphor of imagination is tethered to Thompson’s (Future Eden, not reviewed, etc.) intricately detailed, dreamy illustrations: here’s a house with an airplane in the yard; there’s one sandwiched next to a clearly inhabited domicile-sized shoe. There’s a page of wondrous doors, and several of small boxes that might hold a gargoyle or a pair of red shoes. Beds sprout wings and roots and lakes lap gently at the edge of the bureau. The story works on several levels, but it is the fascinating pictures that will have young readers and listeners asking to see it again and again. (Picture book. 5-9)

Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2001

ISBN: 0-09-176817-9

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Hutchinson/Trafalgar

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
WILD STORIES
by Colin Thompson & illustrated by Colin Thompson

- BOOK REVIEW
NORMAN AND BRENDA
by Colin Thompson & illustrated by Amy Lissiat

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BIG LITTLE BOOK OF HAPPY SADNESS
by Colin Thompson & illustrated by Colin Thompson

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DOG HEAVEN

by Cynthia Rylant & illustrated by Cynthia Rylant ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1995

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Rylant's debut as a picture book illustrator (not to be confused with her board book debut as a collagist in The Everyday Books, 1993) offers sweet comfort to all who have lost loved ones, pets or otherwise. ``When dogs go to Heaven, they don't need wings because God knows that dogs love running best. He gives them fields. Fields and fields and fields.'' There are geese to bark at, plenty of children, biscuits, and, for those that need them, homes. In page- filling acrylics, small, simply brushed figures float against huge areas of bright colors: pictures infused with simple, doggy joy. At the end, an old man leans on a cane as he walks up a slope toward a small white dog: ``Dogs in Dog Heaven may stay as long as they like. . . .They will be there when old friends show up. They will be there at the door.'' Pure, tender, lyrical without being overearnest, and deeply felt. (Picture book. 5-9)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-590-41701-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
HORNBEAM ALL IN
by Cynthia Rylant ; illustrated by Arthur Howard

- BOOK REVIEW
RAIN
by Cynthia Rylant ; illustrated by Lisa Congdon

- BOOK REVIEW
POPPLETON AT CHRISTMAS
by Cynthia Rylant ; illustrated by Mark Teague

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STINK AND THE MIDNIGHT ZOMBIE WALK

From the Stink series

by Megan McDonald & illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 13, 2012

This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...

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An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.

This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.