A humorous, though lightweight, plot tells of Jimmy Dabble, an extraordinary child, who faces the predictable perils of dull, unimaginative, and hardworking farm parents. Saved from their drab perspective by his own innate abilities and his beloved talking farm animals, he seizes ways to enliven everyone’s life and incidentally increase the farm’s productivity. Besides his animal friends, he is desperately alone, until the arrival of his quirky grandmother, who opens up new vistas of how to disobey his parents. Magic intrudes with a fanciful creature from the forbidden forest, but through the steady, dimensionless plot vehicles, all the characters remain undeveloped. Vischer delivers lively conversation that starts to develop insight and a well-paced story but is curtailed by the rest of the text that lacks spark, development, and expertise. The depth that he tries to invest in his characters is flawed. Even the parents’ latent ability to value anything other than work is cheapened by the politically incorrect nature of how that is foreshadowed: father’s craving for tobacco to fill his empty pipe which perpetually hangs from his mouth, and mother’s gentle appreciation for her figurine collection, which she is willing to sacrifice for the good of the farm. A nominee for the 1998 Reuben Award and an animator for Disney and DreamWorks, Vischer’s art smacks of second-rate cartoons. Despite occasionally sparkling and revealing conversation, overall this lacks smooth-flowing text and developed characterization, making it an unnecessary purchase. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: July 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-525-46671-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2001
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
In these 12 retellings, the Immortals come across as unusually benign. Dionysius at first suggests to King Midas that he give his excess wealth to the poor, for instance; the troubles that Pandora releases are originally imprisoned in the box by Prometheus’s brother Epimetheus out of compassion for humankind; and it’s Persephone herself who begs for a compromise that will allow her to stay with her beloved Hades for six months out of every year. Kimmel relates each tale in easy, natural-sounding language. And even though his Andromeda looks more Celtic than Ethiopian (as the oldest versions of the story have it), Montserrat’s figures combine appropriate monumentality with an appealing expressiveness. The stories are all familiar and available in more comprehensive collections, but the colorful illustrations and spacious page design make this a good choice for shared reading. (foreword) (Nonfiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4169-1534-8
Page Count: 112
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2007
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