Immersive art gives this canine odyssey a vivid setting.
A hunter’s dog undertakes a solitary journey through lavishly detailed Australian landscapes.
Like its four stand-alone predecessors in the wordless Love series, the art—gathered in neat arrays of midsized panels, often superimposed onto broader views of rocky vistas—teems with naturalistically painted wildlife. Here it’s all distinctively Australian and so often going about the business of living, dying, hunting, and raising young that the storyline plays out in the background. In that story a burly dog sees his master killed by a snake. After unsuccessfully trying to defend the corpse from a pack of wild dogs, he makes his way, exhausted and battered after further battles with, first, the alpha dog and then later with another venomous snake, overland to a farmhouse. There, in a poignant final sequence, the hunter’s family rushes out in the dark to welcome him back. “Love” doesn’t seem to be a major theme here, but while going light on gore (the hunter’s eaten body is never seen—just the slavering dogs around it) and scenes of explicit predation, Bertolucci gives animal lovers plenty to pore over on nearly every page. Comments about the dangers of climate change in Australia make a worthy if tacked-on close.
Immersive art gives this canine odyssey a vivid setting. (Graphic fiction. 7-11)Pub Date: June 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-951719-17-3
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Magnetic Press
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale.
After a tsunami devastates their habitat in the Salish Sea, a young orca and her brother embark on a remarkable adventure.
Vega’s matriarchal family expects her to become a hunter and wayfinder, with her younger brother, Deneb, protecting and supporting her. Invited to guide her family to their Gathering Place to hunt salmon, Vega’s underwater miscalculations endanger them all, and an embarrassed Vega questions whether she should be a wayfinder. When the baby sister she hoped would become her life companion is stillborn, a distraught Vega carries the baby away to a special resting place, shocking her grieving family. Dispatched to find his missing sister, Deneb locates Vega in the midst of a terrible tsunami. To escape the waters polluted by shattered boats, Vega leads Deneb into unfamiliar open sea. Alone and hungry, the young siblings encounter a spectacular giant whale and travel briefly with shark-hunting orcas. Trusting her instincts and gaining emotional strength from contemplating the vastness of the sky, Vega knows she must lead her brother home and help save her surviving family. In alternating first-person voices, Vega and Deneb tell their harrowing story, engaging young readers while educating them about the marine ecosystem. Realistic black-and-white illustrations enhance the maritime setting.
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale. (maps, wildlife facts, tribes of the Salish Sea watershed, environmental and geographical information, how to help orcas, author’s note, artist’s note, resources) (Animal fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-299592-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to...
A group of talking farm animals catches wind of the farm owner’s intention to burn the barn (with them in it) for insurance money and hatches a plan to flee.
Bond begins briskly—within the first 10 pages, barn cat Burdock has overheard Dewey Baxter’s nefarious plan, and by Page 17, all of the farm animals have been introduced and Burdock is sharing the terrifying news. Grady, Dewey’s (ever-so-slightly) more principled brother, refuses to go along, but instead of standing his ground, he simply disappears. This leaves the animals to fend for themselves. They do so by relying on their individual strengths and one another. Their talents and personalities match their species, bringing an element of realism to balance the fantasy elements. However, nothing can truly compensate for the bland horror of the premise. Not the growing sense of family among the animals, the serendipitous intervention of an unknown inhabitant of the barn, nor the convenient discovery of an alternate home. Meanwhile, Bond’s black-and-white drawings, justly compared to those of Garth Williams, amplify the sense of dissonance. Charming vignettes and single- and double-page illustrations create a pastoral world into which the threat of large-scale violence comes as a shock.
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to ponder the awkward coincidences that propel the plot. (Animal fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-33217-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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