Zen stories are difficult for the uninitiated to grasp and this adaptation of a Japanese folktale by prolific reteller Kimmel is no exception. The thoughtful reader may gain some insight into the quiet workings of a Zen master’s teachings. Others may simply enjoy the humorous pictures of the dogs and cats in medieval Japanese costumes, who enliven Gerstein’s panels in this comic book–like format, without quite understanding the point of the story. A daimyo, a powerful lord in the shape of a large canine, begs the chief monk cat at a faraway shrine to find a solution to his trying problem: a rat trying to eat him out of house and home. Two vigorous young samurai cats arrive, fight, and fail. The third samurai cat, ragged and old, uses nonviolence to trick the rat into leaving of his own accord. A sophisticated story designed to stimulate unconventional thinking. (author’s note) (Picture book/folklore. 6-9)
Pub Date: April 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-8234-1742-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2003
From Johnston (An Old Shell, 1999, etc.), poetic phrases that follow a ghostly barn owl through days and nights, suns and moons. Barn owls have been nesting and roosting, hunting and hatching in the barn and its surroundings for as long as the barn has housed spiders, as long as the wheat fields have housed mice, “a hundred years at least.” The repetition of alliterative words and the hushed hues of the watercolors evoke the soundless, timeless realm of the night owl through a series of spectral scenes. Short, staccato strings of verbs describe the age-old actions and cycles of barn owls, who forever “grow up/and sleep/and wake/and blink/and hunt for mice.” Honey-colored, diffused light glows in contrast to the star-filled night scenes of barn owls blinking awake. A glimpse into the hidden campestral world of the elusive barn owl. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-88106-981-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
Visually marvelous, like its subject—with a text more poetic than expository.
This latest collaboration between Fleming and Rohmann explores the elusive giant squid.
Fleming focuses as much on lingering unknowns as facts, introducing uncertainty in a poetic prologue: "Who are these giants of the dark seas?… // It is a mystery. // After all, how can you know / about an animal hidden from view? / You must rely on clues, / as scientists do...." Rohmann's full-bleed oil-on-paper pictures convey the squid's enormous size by capturing only its parts. Its two tentacles, "curling and twisting and thirty feet long," undulate both within the picture plane and outside it. After a barracuda’s foiled by squid ink, dramatic double gatefolds open, revealing that even a yardwide page can’t fully contain this creature. Sea depths are dark teal, purpled, or blackened; gorgeously crisp white text type casts its own light. Anatomical details elicit Fleming's most assertive descriptions. As tentacles enfold a fish, "they latch on with powerful / sucker-studded clubs. / ... / Suckers ringed with saw-like teeth / that rip into skin and hold on tight." There’s a startling close-up of "the beak. / Bone-hard and parrot-like." Poetic compression occasionally results in obfuscation. Accounting for the squid's huge eyes, Fleming elides bioluminescence (effectively, jellyfishes’ early-warning system of approaching predators), discernible by the squid only as “a shimmering outline.” The creature’s potential color changes are mentioned speculatively, without further qualification.
Visually marvelous, like its subject—with a text more poetic than expository. (labeled diagram of giant squid, author’s note, bibliography, web resources, suggested books) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59643-599-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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