DeLuise’s ode to freedom, a retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen classic, has on its side good intentions and little else. A poor but benevolent king discovers a lost, well-endowed gold mine in his kingdom. He becomes rich, an entrepreneur, a resort-builder. All his assets don’t make the king “happy inside,” where it counts; only the burbling of a nightingale’s sweet song delivers that. When the king cages the bird, it will no longer sing. Court craftsmen construct a mechanical bird with a lovely song and the king forgets the real article, which escapes, until the fake breaks. The king becomes ill until the real nightingale returns and restores him to health; the monarch grasps that the best things in life are free. DeLuise plays fast and loose with Andersen’s parable—the king builds a Las Vegas’style resort complex with his newfound wealth—and he overstates the elusive ideal of inner peace to degree. Following the story and amiable art, recipes and a song score close the book. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81749-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
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.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In Brown's swashbuckling watercolors, Boris is tough indeed — hirsute, craggy, grim — but then, "All pirates are tough." As Fox's text succinctly points out, he's also "massive," "scruffy," "greedy," and "fearless," all qualities demonstrated in the illustrations as he seizes a violin from one of his crew, threatens the whole ugly lot after it's been purloined (readers will know that the stowaway boy, who earlier watched while the pirates buried their treasure, is the real culprit). The "scary" pirates catch the boy but soften when they hear him play; and when Boris's parrot dies, the boy helps him put it in the violin case for burial at sea and Boris cries and cries — "All pirates cry." These pirates also let the boy keep the violin when they row him home. Kids are sure to enjoy puzzling out the real story from the pictures, to which, in the end, the text's childlike stereotyping makes an amusing contrast. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-15-289612-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1994
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