Complex feelings articulated through heart-rending paintings that beg return visits.
Amid a teeming city, bustling with smartly dressed bears, foxes, cats, humans, and ostriches, rabbit Adelaide spends each day alone in her workshop safely behind a soft, red curtain.
This rabbit’s sensitivity, her glistening, emotive eyes, and her pert ears bring to mind other anthropomorphized bunnies: Margery Williams and William Nicholson’s Velveteen Rabbit, Beatrix Potter’s rabbit broods, DuBose Heyward and Marjorie Flack’s country bunny and her little gold shoes, and even the psychological complexity of the scrambling rabbits of Watership Down. Moving, impressionistic oil paintings endow Adelaide with the same searing sentience, pathos, and intellect of these antecedents. Her wrenching isolation, loneliness, and ultimate desire for connection make this picture book perfectly suited for older readers. Fantastic flourishes will appeal to children of all ages; fish and sailboats fly through the streets, animals populate an urban city center, while a fox and Adelaide unknowingly document each other’s lives through art. When a storm blows, forcing them to collide, readers’ human hearts sing. Masterful artwork, streaked with breathtaking brush strokes and daubs of pigment, easily makes up for sometimes-unimaginative language. These portraits of animals struggling with human feelings startle with their emotional exactitude, empathy, and expert execution.
Complex feelings articulated through heart-rending paintings that beg return visits. (Picture book. 5-14)Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1454-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Brilliant.
Young heroes rise to the challenge of protecting their home, family, and world when a new villain threatens the Glimouria Archipelago and the Immortal in this third series entry.
“New trouble” comes to the sanctuary of Glimt when Irian Guinne is kidnapped and Teren, the young Immortal, is threatened. Christopher Forrester, former princess Anya, jaculus dragon Jacques, and ratatoska navigator Ratwin undertake a series of herculean tasks to fulfill the kidnappers’ demands and free Irian, all without Nighthand’s knowledge or help. Christopher seeks knowledge from Naravirala the sphinx to understand his new, deeper connection to creatures (“It is the people you love who anchor you”), while Anya leans into her warrior nature (“What if I was born to be brave?”). Meanwhile, bandits with ouroboros bracelets pillage and burn across the Archipelago at the command of Astor Morax, and a fearsome tiger spies through mirrors. The white-presenting leads’ quest to save Irian is central, but brief sections visit Irian, Nighthand, and beautiful, deadly Carla Venasque. The climactic Battle of Glimt features ferocity, cleverness, sacrifice, and bravery, and the ending is more Shakespearean comedy than tragedy—but the danger to Teren is not over, leaving eager readers to await the fourth installment. This is a perfectly paced, mythology-laced tale of action, adventure, and heart that reminds readers that “the only thing stronger than fear is love, unceasingly and exultantly given.” Final art not seen.
Brilliant. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9780593809945
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
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