This nicely understressed demonstration of creativity in process begins with a box of colored chalk and a blank sheet of paper. Then one by one the eight chalk sticks emerge—first, to make a picture (Blue draws sky and sea, Yellow sun and sand, Brown a little boy and two trees, Green palm leaves and a turtle, and Purple gives the boy a stick); and then, with no perceptible shift in gears, they tell a story. White puts a flag on the stick and Red writes HELP ME on it, Black makes a boat in the distance. Finally, with all eight colors used and the boys' plea still unheeded, the creation takes over. The turtle begins to move, invites the boy onto his back, and paddles him out to the boat. Thus the story grows on you, as you read it.
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1976
ISBN: 0397316992
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1976
A sumptuously illustrated Jazz Age Cinderella story.
In author-illustrator Sheckels’ picture book, a maid at a grand hotel dreams of watching her favorite band perform.
In a world of genteel, anthropomorphized animals, Flora, a ferret, works as a scullery maid in a ritzy, three-story hotel. Scouring and scrubbing in her blue dress and apron, Flora hums along to the music in her heart, hoping that one day she’ll save enough pennies to attend a concert. When her favorite band, the Jazzers, is booked to play at the hotel, Flora desperately wants to watch them perform. The hotel manager, a snobbish fox, turns her away—but then the Jazzers themselves hear her humming outside their room. They’re in need of a vocalist, so they invite her to be their guest soloist, and then to join them permanently. Sheckels tells Flora’s story in straightforward, unrhymed prose, allowing the characters to take center stage without distraction; Flora is easily identifiable as a Cinderella archetype. The lush, hand-painted illustrations are whimsical in the tradition of Beatrix Potter, Inga Moore, and Jill Barklem, capture an Edwardian opulence as well as the grittier circumstances of those whose labors maintained such opulence. The Jazzers, consisting of waistcoated racoon (double bass), skunk (drums), rabbit (piano), and possum (saxophone), evoke a time when free-spirited bohemianism aimed to challenge class barriers.
A sumptuously illustrated Jazz Age Cinderella story.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393187
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A picture book made to incite pleasure and joy.
The celebrated picture-book artist enthusiastically joins the nonsense tradition.
Carle’s nearly 50-year career has produced myriad concept books about counting, the alphabet, and colors, as well as simple, original stories, retellings of fairy tales, and picture books that push the physical boundaries of the form. This latest proves that Carle can reinvent himself as a creator in the field, as he now revels in the absurd, eschewing any pretense of teaching a concept or even engaging with story. Instead, spread after spread uses nonsensical text and sublimely ridiculous pictures to provoke laughter and head-shaking delight. In addition to the book’s title, art immediately cues the book’s silly tone: the cover displays one of Carle’s signature collages against an empty white background; it depicts a duckling emerging from a peeled-back banana peel. The title-page art presents a deer sprouting flowers rather than antlers from its head. When the book proper begins, and language joins illustration, readers are ushered into a series of situations and scenarios that upend expectations and play with conventions. “Ouch! Who’s that in my pouch?” asks a kangaroo with a little blond child instead of a joey in her pouch. Another scene shows two snakes, joined at the middle and looking for their respective tails.
A picture book made to incite pleasure and joy. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-17687-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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