Offers a welcome focus on monsters more often misunderstood than malign.
Originally published in Switzerland and translated from German, a gallery of mythical beasts, from the chimera to the Crodh Sith.
What stands out in this album of elusive animals, inspired by Warnecke’s sketches of images on ancient vases and plates housed at the Etruscan Museum in Volterra, Italy, is how many of the 19 creatures will probably be unfamiliar even to not-so-young audiences. The selections include the mythical Barong lion from Bali and the tarand, a reindeerlike creature that’s variously thought to dwell in Ethiopia or among the Scythians, along with the potentially better-known likes of the basilisk and griffin. The entries are decidedly multicultural and, according to the author, chosen to express not only our terrors, but also “our longing for wise creatures that protect good and punish evil.” The giant kraken Tumu-Rai’i Fenua of Aotearoa (New Zealand), for example, was tasked with teaching humans to live in harmony and grew so frustrated that it is said to have turned to stone. Some of the author’s broader claims, such as an observation that in India, unicorns are not white but red and black, beg for source references that aren’t provided. Still, her remarks are generally tantalizing enough to spur readers to do their own research. The illustrations are flat and stylized, but sinuous clouds, tails, feathers, flames, and tentacles give them both a distinctive look and a strong sense of graceful, undulating movement.
Offers a welcome focus on monsters more often misunderstood than malign. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780735845916
Page Count: 48
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Except for the chocolate cure, it’s much like trying to care for an oversized cat…that, OK, breathes fire.
Caring for a traveling relative’s pet isn’t usually quite so…fraught.
In a series of increasingly frantic email messages to his oddly unresponsive uncle Morton, young Edward Smith-Pickle recounts a series of household mishaps caused by the large dragon so hastily dropped off to mind for a week. For one thing, the animal isn’t housetrained. For another, what does it even eat—besides little sister Emily’s bunny? In the wake of incidents ranging from scorched curtains to a hole torn in the refrigerator, Edward’s disgusted mom would happily foist the beast off on the police or the zoo, if only they didn’t keep hanging up on her. But worse disasters are warded off when Uncle Morton at last writes back to suggest feeding the creature chocolate, and the dragon is instantly transformed from surly headache into a charming, compliant companion. Good thing, because Uncle Morton has upcoming junkets planned, and this short opener, first published overseas in 2012, already has four sequels either out or planned. Amid Edward’s pleas and Morton’s soothing replies, Parsons intersperses large scenes of domestic chaos, frowning (later smiling) people, and an inscrutable, horse-sized dragon flopped bonelessly on the sofa.
Except for the chocolate cure, it’s much like trying to care for an oversized cat…that, OK, breathes fire. (Farce. 7-9)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-29896-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An exotic menagerie fenced in by design flubs and an anemic plotline.
Creatures step out of a bestiary in this tie-in to a manuscript exhibit at the Getty Museum.
The cheery if surreal episode features a young castle worker who swipes an unfinished bestiary and dreams of nonviolent knightly encounters with a lion, unicorn, dragon, and other mighty beasts of yore—somehow failing to notice until the end that his supposed foes have swirled out of the pages to feed the chickens, spread straw, light a fire, and finish the rest of his assigned tasks. Lee places richly hued, friendly looking versions of the creatures into bland castle-yard settings and adds a wizard-ish artist who watches and ultimately draws the animals back into their book. Readers may wonder if there’s a leaf missing partway through, where two very different full-page illustrations collide at the gutter. Further confusion will likely follow as the captions to a set of images from actual bestiaries at the end (following an inconspicuous cautionary note) present fancy as factoid: Lions “are afraid of fire and the sight of a white rooster”; a “dog that crosses a hyena’s shadow will lose its voice.” Even a chimeric bonnacon, which “attacks by expelling a fiery dung that can travel as far as two acres, burning anything it touches,” can’t quite redeem this artless outing. Save for the Asian-presenting wizard/artist, the human cast is white.
An exotic menagerie fenced in by design flubs and an anemic plotline. (appendix) (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-947440-04-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Getty Publications
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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