Human beings are so often vilified—justifiably—that it’s refreshing to find a story that juxtaposes our species’ finer qualities with its more monstrous ones. In this Persian-inspired tale (based on a 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran), Parisa desperately seeks the company of another human being when her village is destroyed. She knocks on door after door, but hostile animals now occupy any still-standing homes. Boar says, “Hands like grasping vines, you remind me of a hunter who threw spears at me. See these tusks? Run, or I’ll gore a hole through you.” Parisa contemplates her maligned hand, as a hunting scene hovers over Boar’s head, petroglyph-like. From Bear to Snake, the animals shame her into masking her offending parts. Eventually, however, Parisa casts off her disguises to walk “as a human child under the sun,” laughing, dancing and sharing with her now-benevolent animal friends. Swiatkowska’s extraordinary artwork—textured oil paintings, decorative designs, splendid palette and artfully spare compositions—adds power and beauty to the poetic text that echoes Rumi. A gorgeous, discussion-provoking read-aloud. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4231-0448-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
Did you like this book?
With a little help from his audience, a young storyteller gets over a solid case of writer’s block in this engaging debut.
Despite the (sometimes creatively spelled) examples produced by all his classmates and the teacher’s assertion that “Stories are everywhere!” Ralph can’t get past putting his name at the top of his paper. One day, lying under the desk in despair, he remembers finding an inchworm in the park. That’s all he has, though, until his classmates’ questions—“Did it feel squishy?” “Did your mom let you keep it?” “Did you name it?”—open the floodgates for a rousing yarn featuring an interloping toddler, a broad comic turn and a dramatic rescue. Hanlon illustrates the episode with childlike scenes done in transparent colors, featuring friendly-looking children with big smiles and widely spaced button eyes. The narrative text is printed in standard type, but the children’s dialogue is rendered in hand-lettered printing within speech balloons. The episode is enhanced with a page of elementary writing tips and the tantalizing titles of his many subsequent stories (“When I Ate Too Much Spaghetti,” “The Scariest Hamster,” “When the Librarian Yelled Really Loud at Me,” etc.) on the back endpapers.
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some budding young writers off and running. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-0761461807
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amazon Children's Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A repressive teacher almost ruins second grade for a prodigy in this amusing, if overwritten, tale. Having shown a fascination with great buildings since constructing a model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa from used diapers at age two, Iggy sinks into boredom after Miss Greer announces, throwing an armload of histories and craft projects into the trash, that architecture will be a taboo subject in her class. Happily, she changes her views when the collapse of a footbridge leaves the picnicking class stranded on an island, whereupon Iggy enlists his mates to build a suspension bridge from string, rulers and fruit roll-ups. Familiar buildings and other structures, made with unusual materials or, on the closing pages, drawn on graph paper, decorate Roberts’s faintly retro cartoon illustrations. They add an audience-broadening element of sophistication—as would Beaty’s decision to cast the text into verse, if it did not result in such lines as “After twelve long days / that passed in a haze / of reading, writing and arithmetic, / Miss Greer took the class / to Blue River Pass / for a hike and an old-fashioned picnic.” Another John Lithgow she is not, nor is Iggy another Remarkable Farkle McBride (2000), but it’s always salutary to see young talent vindicated. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8109-1106-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2021 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
