An airy flight of imagination, bi-cultural as well as bilingual.
A cloud carries a delighted lad over a city and an amusement park, past kites and fireworks, then on to dreams.
A fearless climber since toddlerdom, young Sora (Japanese for “Sky”) takes on a tree one day and finds a smiling, pink-cheeked cloud in the branches. Clambering aboard, he floats over streets and other sights before drifting off to sleep—dreaming of puddles as the cloud floats through a rain shower and of digging in sand after a seagull’s cry—and then gently coming back to Earth. Adding Japanese decorations to kites and other details, plus occasional touches of subtle humor (when Sora looks down at a busy playground his “Look! Ants!” is not a figure of speech), Hoshino illustrates this idyll with delicately colored paper-collage and paint scenes featuring semitransparent figures in harmonious compositions. Likewise, her poetic narrative (“From way, waaay, waaaay up in the sky, / fireworks whisper like the soft pitter-pattering of your heart”) is not only paralleled by a Japanese translation but extended by Japanese exclamations in the pictures and explanatory notes at the end.
An airy flight of imagination, bi-cultural as well as bilingual. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59702-027-5
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Immedium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
Hurray for the underdog.
Heart (-shaped surface feature) literally broken by its demotion from planet status, Pluto glumly conducts readers on a tour of the solar system.
You’d be bummed, too. Angrily rejecting the suggestions of “mean scientists” from Earth that “ice dwarf” or “plutoid” might serve as well (“Would you like to be called humanoid?”), Pluto drifts out of the Kuiper Belt to lead readers past the so-called “real” planets in succession. All sport faces with googly eyes in Keller’s bright illustrations, and distinct personalities, too—but also actual physical characteristics (“Neptune is pretty icy. And gassy. I’m not being mean, he just is”) that are supplemented by pages of “fun facts” at the end. Having fended off Saturn’s flirtation, endured Jupiter’s stormy reception (“Keep OFF THE GAS!”) and relentless mockery from the asteroids, and given Earth the cold shoulder, Pluto at last takes the sympathetic suggestion of Venus and Mercury to talk to the Sun. “She’s pretty bright.” A (what else?) warm welcome, plus our local star’s comforting reminders that every celestial body is unique (though “people talk about Uranus for reasons I don’t really want to get into”), and anyway, scientists are still arguing the matter because that’s what “science” is all about, mend Pluto’s heart at last: “Whatever I’m called, I’ll always be PLUTO!”
Hurray for the underdog. (afterword) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1453-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sweet art, cloying storyline.
Actor Andrews and her daughter Walton Hamilton pay tribute to the power of music.
The inhabitants of a small village are happy with “simple pleasures” until they commercialize to attract tourists…whereupon a dismal purple mist creeps in and thickens to the point that people stop visiting or even going outside. Then one day little Piccolino, who is helping his father dust the deserted opera house, plinks out a tune on the piano…and notices that the palms in the lobby look fresher. The brown-skinned pair proceed to gather wilting houseplants from all over town, park them in the auditorium seats, and call the orchestra members in for a concert. The plants flourish, the fog lifts, and throngs of villagers are drawn out into the streets by the music to dance and sing. Everyone realizes that “if they remained faithful to all that matters most, nothing could darken their days again.” In a closing note the authors state that they were inspired by an actual concert played in Barcelona in 2020 to an “audience” of plants—a piece of performance art more likely to stimulate discussion than this trite, sugary mess. The illustrations are one bright spot: MacKay places her gracefully posed, diverse figures in luminously hued scenes of narrow streets and neatly kept buildings perched on a steep hill and threaded with musical staves. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Sweet art, cloying storyline. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781419763199
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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