City Angel, an urban, updated patron saint, hovers above the city skyline, intervening to make good things happen: petting the baker’s kitchen cat, planting seeds in a vacant lot, soothing a cranky child, assisting a firefighter and a homeless man, helping the player make the basket in the corner game, and having some fun herself, cruising on a skateboard. From morning ’til night, City Angel flies through the painterly landscape, practicing “random acts of kindness” towards its racially diverse inhabitants. Collage-and-oil illustrations are the focus of this work. The curving, tilting, twisting, intersecting forms and figures create a vibrant, rhythmic view of the angel’s intervention. Illustrations aside, will the rhyming text engage a younger reader enough to comprehend the simultaneous, unrelated events connected by the whimsical acts of this urban angel? Hard to tell, but Brooker’s pictures are wonderful. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-8037-2821-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2004
An original tale takes readers to that nexus of foolishness, the village of Chelm. Shlomo and Rivka have “five children, twelve scrawny hens, one rooster and not much money.” So they use simple logic: A cow gives milk because she eats grass, so if they feed grass to their hens, the hens will give milk. This is, of course, a Chelm story. Chelm, for those who don’t know, is a village from Jewish folktales, populated by the most foolish people in the world. Stuchner is completely at home with the almost-logic of Chelm. (It may seem paradoxical to write a new traditional folktale, but it's very much in the spirit of Chelm.) As in the best of the traditional stories, every step of the villagers’ thought process makes perfect sense. Readers might even find themselves thinking, “Why shouldn’t hens give milk? It’s only fair.” Children will have a great time looking for the flaw in the argument. There are a few lulls, but Stuchner carries the gag through to a very amusing last page, in which Shlomo imagines a goat trying to hatch an enormous egg. Weissman’s illustrations help to sell the joke: The goat just looks so content up there on top of her egg. The story is so successful in making the absurd seem obvious that readers may wonder why they didn’t think of it themselves. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55469-319-1
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Uncomplicated language expressed in a direct and honest voice plus vibrant illustrations make Israel’s Operation Moses...
The hardship many Ethiopian Jews faced to successfully reach Israel is recounted in the voice of a 5-year-old girl who escapes with her grandmother, determined to reach their destination.
Yuvi’s trip begins on a donkey at night with her grandmother’s strong religious conviction that angels will help them join mother and baby brother in their real home. “We are going to Jerusalem. We have angels with us. We’ll fly home.” The long, arduous and dangerous journey is made bearable through role-playing familiar family Shabbat rituals. Several encounters with robbers take almost all their money, except for the small amount Yuvi cleverly hides within her hair curls. Starved and parched from the endless days and nights of traveling, mostly on foot, Grandmother’s new promise of unlimited candy, clothes, games and bread is a wonder to Yuvi. Finally when they reach Jerusalem aboard a big plane, Yuvi sees her first orange tree and learns that after picking and eating one, so juicy and sweet, another will grow back—the candy tree she imagined. Large, mostly double-page paintings in soft yellow, tan and blue hues on a textured canvas reflect the intrigue, emotion and difficulty of the journey.
Uncomplicated language expressed in a direct and honest voice plus vibrant illustrations make Israel’s Operation Moses easily accessible for early-elementary children. (afterword) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7613-5651-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kar-Ben
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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