A kidnapped orphan races away to freedom. In an Arabian village, a little boy named Azad, who lives with his poor elderly uncle, fetches water for tea and tends to the goat before running off to play with his friends. His gymnastics skills attract the attention of a sheikh, who offers to train the boy as a camel rider. Whisked to the desert to live with a bunch of other boys, Azad competes in dangerous races and suffers brutal discipline. He and his camel Asfur become inseparable; one day, they win a race and keep going, until the men who have oppressed them are far in the distance. Boy and camel sleep curled up together under the desert moon and awake to the smiling faces of a group of Bedouins; Azad and Asfur have found a home at last. Pal's striking illustrations in watercolor and ink position sharply delineated characters in the foreground against soft, blurry desert backgrounds. Her heart-tugging tale also folds in a succinct social-studies lesson, and a brief afterword explains the controversial "sport" of camel racing. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84507-982-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
Mom departs for the store with emphatic instructions that Harvey mustn’t draw because today is “Doodleday,” but Harvey doesn’t obey this baffling edict. He has no idea what Doodleday is, but surely a sketch of a fly “couldn’t hurt a fly,” right? He frowns in concentration and, using blue pencil on white paper, produces a nice, fat, hairy fly—which immediately appears, alive and exponentially larger, “destroying the kitchen.” Worried, Harvey renders a spider in purple, which also bursts into life—and snares Harvey’s dad in its web. Harvey draws a bird next, then a giant squid, hoping each time that the new creature will devour the next-smallest and stop the chaos. His massive, animated artwork wreaks havoc on the neighborhood until Mom returns and draws the only thing that can contain them: Mom herself. Sketched-Mom forces the creatures back into the pad of paper, and peace is restored. Collins uses fine lines, perspective and plenty of color in portraying Harvey and the backgrounds, but the drawings-come-alive grow only in size, not detail: Each resembles a child’s artwork, with grainy, crayon-textured outlines on white paper that stays flat and non-transparent. The disparate visual styles look fascinating together and distract from the niggling misnomer of a title; Harvey’s work is too deliberate to be called doodling. A nifty heir to Harold and the Purple Crayon. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1683-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An abandoned rowboat, not the titular lighthouse, is the link between an amiable bear, a little boy and his dog. The text...
Poorly paced text delivers a choppy story unlikely to engage readers despite McPhail’s familiar, endearing art.
An abandoned rowboat, not the titular lighthouse, is the link between an amiable bear, a little boy and his dog. The text begins abruptly, announcing that the bear goes to a beach waterfall “to wait for fish to come tumbling down.” A rowboat appears on the facing page, and because it “smelled good” the bear decides to nap in it. The sleeping bear in the fragrant boat sails off, arrives at the abandoned lighthouse on the next page, finds good fishing in nearby rocks and doesn’t notice when the rowboat again floats away. The boy and his dog find it, and while they are sleeping within it, they float to the lighthouse as well. No longer abandoned but occupied by bear, boy and dog, the lighthouse allows the threesome to save an approaching ship when they light the “nine wicks of the giant oil lamp” and use a “giant reflecting mirror” to make the light gleam.Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59643-525-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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