Absolutely wonderful. Read it to your dog.
Bubbling Pinkwater (The Afterlife Diet, 1995, etc.), NPR humorist and children’s author, tail-wags over the dogs in his life and draws their pictures.
Pinkwater is not Jack London, his white fang baring the call of the wild, although Pinkwater’s father believes that Daniel’s Uncle Boris was talked into trekking from Warsaw across Russia, Siberia, Mongolia, and China to catch a boat to Alyeska and the Yukon, by none other than London himself, a Pole who lived over his father’s tailor shop with an angry wife and three children. In the Yukon, Uncle Boris went prospecting with a team of Malamutes, whose leader, Jake, spoke perfect Polish: “Ir zeit zaier gut-hartsik” (“You are very kind”). When Pinkwater’s father emigrated from Warzawa to Manhattan in 1920 (and hence to Memphis), where he rose from the depths to the lower depths as a ragpicker, Uncle Boris, who sold a black chow-chow to Freud and had a photo to prove it, moved into the Memphis apartment and gave the house the gift of a Pekingnese called Bobby, who saved Danny from being eaten. “During that vulnerable period in which I was not dissimilar to a meat loaf, he lurked under my crib, growled, and challenged anyone who came near me. . . . ” Skip many years and Daniel’s married to Jill in Hoboken and buying Juno, a Malamute puppy. “Dogs are yuppies. They have the corporate mentality. They will climb up your body to get to the top. This is all dogs.” As Juno grows, he pushes Jill out of bed at night and Daniel awakes to a grotesquely grinning face, gazing lovingly on him. Later, his Inuit Lulu’s litters become holy terrors, with the prettiest and brightest puppy ready to eat his mother’s liver. But Maxine, the house Labrador, an insanely maternal control freak, straightens out the disobedient pup and gives her what moral qualities she may have.
Absolutely wonderful. Read it to your dog.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2001
ISBN: 0-684-85632-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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