Napoli (with Richard Tchen, Spinners, p. 887, etc.) continues to retell familiar tales in this gripping novel about Jack and the events surrounding the beanstalk. Jack has a fine life, planning to follow his loving father in farming, and hoping to marry Flora, the girl next door, in a not- too-distant someday. When a drought dries up his father’s aspirations, the man goes off, and is said to have ascended into the clouds. Years later, Jack, tormented by nightmares, has lost everything, including Flora, who believes him to be mad; his mother sends him to market with the family cow, and the fateful trade that launches the old fairy tale is made. Napoli’s earthy variations on the traditional story make the magic more satisfying, for everything Jack steals at the giant’s home in the clouds is altered when he gets it home, e.g., the hen doesn’t lay golden eggs, but an unlimited number of real eggs, while the pot of gold turns into a bottomless source of stones, ideal for building a dream house to tempt Flora back. The world Napoli creates is at once well- known and strange, as if she is telling the truth, at last, about the story’s origins, and pointing the way to its later exaggerations. Her locale is one where magic works, but not too well, and where dark and psychologically truthful lives give meaning to the events of a childhood tale. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-385-32627-0
Page Count: 134
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999
The scope of a girl’s world broadens in this simple book that introduces the scale of existence, in a game of identity and location that most children have played. “My name is Maria Mendoza,” the intimate text begins. “I live with my father, my mother, my baby brother, Tony, and my older sister, Angelica at number 43 Juniper street.” Maria goes on to name her place in her town, county, state, country, continent, hemisphere, planet, solar system, galaxy, and universe, knowing that as small as it may be in comparison, her immediate world is significant. She is still Maria Mendoza, “from here to there.” Cuyler’s plain text is laden with meaning for new readers; she allows them to draw their own conclusions, which they will. Pak’s bright colors and perspective help children keep track of Maria’s place in the universe, and with folksy familiarity, take the vistas from local to grand. (Picture book, 3-6)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-3191-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
More action-oriented and less psychologically penetrating than Echohawk (1996), this historically intriguing but dramatically uneven sequel once again puts the protagonist between a rock and a hard place. Echohawk, captured by Mohicans when he was only four, has the face and body of a European colonist, but the mind and heart of a Mohican warrior. Now 13, Echohawk, his Mohican father, Glickihigan, and small brother, Bamaineo, must travel west through hostile Mohawk terrain in order to relocate near the Ohio River. Making their journey more risky is the substantial ransom the governor of New York is offering for the recapture and return of any white settler “taken captive” by native peoples. After a protracted set-up, the plot finally begins to bubble when Echohawk is ambushed by soldiers and sent to live with his biological aunt. There Durrant demonstrates what she does best, sympathetically balancing the differences between Mohican and colonial attitudes. Although that part of the book gets short shrift, and the rest of the story is dedicated to modest adventure as Echohawk and his family make their ways to safety, this is an enjoyable read enlivened by the author’s facility for establishing a fine sense of time and place. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 19, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90369-6
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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