by Eric Colossal ; illustrated by Eric Colossal ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 24, 2015
Colossal’s debut outing is a cheerful if unexceptional popcorn read.
In a land with dragons and other monsters, a happy-go-lucky chef can also be a hero.
Rutabaga is a chef on a journey to find the rarest, tastiest ingredients to use in his cooking. He’s a foodie Indiana Jones for the junior set: When he finds a legendary sword, he wants only the mushrooms growing on it, happily surrendering the sword itself to the next person who arrives. Though Rutabaga isn’t a warrior or wizard, his culinary expertise often comes in handy; for example, he’s able to deduce what food might nourish an ailing royal pet. Colossal’s full-color, cartoonish illustrations, with their heavy linework and simple figures, match the light, goofy tone of the stories. When Rutabaga gets cooking, Colossal exploits the graphic form to break down the action into numbered steps reminiscent of real cookbooks. The slapstick humor entertains but leaves little space for genuine character development, and the characters’ determinedly colloquial speech highlights the flimsiness of the faux medieval setting. Recipes scattered throughout allow kids to test their own cooking skills, at least on the ones with real-world ingredients. (Taste testers should be warned that one recipe features crushed cinnamon breath mints as an ingredient.)
Colossal’s debut outing is a cheerful if unexceptional popcorn read. (Graphic adventure. 8-11)Pub Date: March 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1380-4
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
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by Eric Colossal ; illustrated by Eric Colossal
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by Natalie Babbitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1975
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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by Valerie Worth & illustrated by Natalie Babbitt
by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer ; illustrated by Simini Blocker ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 18, 2019
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer ; illustrated by Frank W. Dormer
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by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer & illustrated by Nicoletta Ceccoli
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