Worthy of theme but lacking in execution.
A prolific Mongolian storyteller’s original legend of how the distinctive dwelling known as the ger came to be invented.
Adapted into spare and stately English by renowned storyteller Pellowski, the story is punctuated by quarrels. Once, all living things lived peaceably in “a big house called the earth.” But fights began, and all went to find homes of their own—including a man who, being “very old” and “very intelligent,” instructs his seven sons to gather willow branches, rope, and fleeces to construct a sturdy round shelter. But the house blows down after the old man dies because his sons have ignored his command to “work together and tighten the ropes that keep our home on the ground.” Perhaps to counter the all-male cast of the narrative, Vidal adds silent feminine figures in a few scenes. However, aside from the occasional Bactrian camel or golden eagle, her grassy settings have a generic look, and though each of the sons wears a differently colored robe, in face and feature they are indistinguishable. Moreover, aside from those plain robes there are no decorations or possessions of any sort, culturally distinctive or otherwise, to be seen, and though Pellowski appends a description of how gers are typically furnished, the illustrator’s one glimpse inside shows just empty space.
Worthy of theme but lacking in execution. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-937786-81-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Wisdom Tales
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
The runt of the litter of print titles and websites covering the topic.
This tally of presidential pets reads like a school report (for all that the author is a journalist for Fox Business Network) and isn’t helped by its suite of amateurish illustrations.
Barnes frames the story with a teacher talking to her class and closes it with quizzes and a write-on “ballot.” Presidents from Washington to Obama—each paired to mentions of birds, dogs, livestock, wild animals and other White House co-residents—parade past in a rough, usually undated mix of chronological order and topical groupings. The text is laid out in monotonous blocks over thinly colored scenes that pose awkwardly rendered figures against White House floors or green lawns. In evident recognition that the presidents might be hard to tell apart, on some (but not enough) pages they carry identifying banners. The animals aren’t so differentiated; an unnamed goat that William Henry Harrison is pulling along with his cow Sukey in one picture looks a lot like one that belonged to Benjamin Harrison, and in some collective views, it’s hard to tell which animals go with which first family.
The runt of the litter of print titles and websites covering the topic. (bibliography, notes for adult readers) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62157-035-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Patriot Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
The first broad release of a title originally published regionally and overseas in 1999, this simply told, deeply affecting tale follows a teddy’s passage from hand to hand through war and other troubles. First given to David, a German child who passes it to his close friend Oskar when he and his Jewish family are taken away, the bear is picked from a pile of bomb rubble by an African-American GI. In the States it becomes a girl’s prized companion until snatched by neighborhood ruffians and cast into the trash. Rescued, it then spends many years in the window of an antiques store until a passerby—none other than a now-elderly Oskar—recognizes a distinctive ink stain on its head and rushes in to buy it. This sparks a newspaper story, which leads to a stunning phone call and the joyful reunion of bear, Oskar and David. Subtle changes of facial expression in Ungerer’s watercolor art give the bear—stained, battered and with a clumsily repaired bullet hole—plenty of character, and there’s nary a trace of sentimentality in the matter-of-fact narrative. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 0714857661
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Phaidon
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2010
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