The cruelties attending the building of the Great Wall are dramatized in a powerful story. After her scholar husband is enslaved to work on the Wall, Meng goes on an arduous journey to search for him, only to find that he has died as a result of unremitting toil. Meng summons supernatural powers to topple the Wall in order to reclaim his bones. Enthralled by her beauty, the Emperor begs her to marry him, which she agrees to do on condition that her husband first receive a sumptuous burial—but when the period of mourning is complete, Meng escapes the tyrant by plunging to her death in the sea. Even though the Emperor's vengeance pursues her after death, she triumphs over him yet again as her courage is remembered. The author relates this moving tale with quiet dignity, while the Chinese-born painter conveys Meng's sorrow and determination with elegant simplicity in his lovely ink and watercolor illustrations. A fine contribution. (Folklore/Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-8037-0895-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1991
Young readers will enjoy this glimpse of Jewish immigrant life.
A little fish gets a big break!
Shirley’s immigrant family comes to the United States and opens a new store. However, there is a problem: They cannot sell the gefilte fish, a family specialty, to the customers in their store’s neighborhood. Pretty soon the stuffed fish dish piles up, and Shirley’s parents lament that they might be eating it forever if they cannot sell some soon. Shirley takes it upon herself to try her best to move gefilte-units. Even though Mama says she is too little to help, one day, when the other adults are busy, Shirley gets the opportunity to step in—and, with a very creative solution, she saves the day. After all, it’s Shirley’s store, too. The story, which appears to take place around the turn of the 19th century, is a whole family undertaking, with Jewish food and culture at the center. Illustrations, created with pencil sketches that were overdrawn and digitally colored, use plenty of white space, and a sense of warmth pervades the narrative. Yiddish words—like farmisht and keppele—dot the pages and are listed in a helpful glossary that explains that Yiddish was spoken by many Eastern European Jews. Shirley and her family are light-skinned; theirs is a diverse community. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Young readers will enjoy this glimpse of Jewish immigrant life. (recipe for gefilte fish) (Picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64614-126-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Pretty, though as condensations go, less Wonder-full than Robert Sabuda’s pop-up Alice (2003) or the digital Alicewinks...
A much-abridged version of the classic’s first five chapters, dressed up with large and properly surreal illustrations.
Rhatigan and Nurnberg retain “Curiouser and curiouser!” and other select bits of the original while recasting the narrative in various sizes of type and a modern-sounding idiom: “Tiny Alice needed something special to eat to get back to her regular girl size.” They take Carroll’s bemused young explorer past initial ups and downs and her encounter with a certain (here, nonsmoking) Blue Caterpillar. Looking more to Disney than Tenniel, Puybaret casts Alice as a slender figure with flyaway corn-silk hair and big, blue, widely spaced eyes posing with balletic grace against broadly airbrushed backdrops. Leafless trees and barren hills give Wonderland an open, autumnal look. The odd vegetation adds an otherworldly tone, and compact houses and residents from the White Rabbit and the Dodo to occasional troupes of mice or other small creatures in circus dress are depicted with precise, lapidary polish. A marginally relevant endpaper map (partly blocked by the flaps) leads down the River of Tears, past a turnoff for a Bathroom and on toward “the Tea Party.”
Pretty, though as condensations go, less Wonder-full than Robert Sabuda’s pop-up Alice (2003) or the digital Alicewinks (2013). (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62354-049-4
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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