A Victorian-era artifact, available today in collections of the author’s works and served only partially, at best, by these...
Scratchboard illustrations add atmospheric notes to MacDonald’s enigmatic tale of two children who grow old and then young again as they journey through magical lands.
The 1867 tale is full of lyrical references to color: the titular key itself, for instance, along with a mystical rainbow shining with “shade after shade beyond the violet; while before the red stood a color more gorgeous and mysterious still,” and hummingbird-feathered fish that swim through the air and are transformed (when eaten, a weirdly macabre touch) to tiny angels that “throw off a continuous shower of sparks of all colors.” Rather than try to capture these, Sanderson chooses to use a medium best suited to conveying the story’s likewise significant themes of light and shadow. But for all the expertly modeled hair, faces, and foliage in her art, the rainbow, when it does appear, looks like a monochromatic sunbeam, and shadows in some scenes are obtrusively heavy. The story's metaphors are murky where the illustrations are not, though, and that, along with the ritualistic tone, will likely leave young readers in the dark. Jane Yolen adds a biographical sketch of the author; her critical reflections on different ways of reading the strange miniodyssey only underscore its obscurity.
A Victorian-era artifact, available today in collections of the author’s works and served only partially, at best, by these new illustrations. (Illustrated short story. 9-11, adult)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5456-8
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not the first time old Ben has paid our times a call, but it’s funny and free-spirited, with an informational load that...
Antics both instructive and embarrassing ensue after a mysterious package left on their doorstep brings a Founding Father into the lives of two modern children.
Summoned somehow by what looks for all the world like an old-time crystal radio set, Ben Franklin turns out to be an amiable sort. He is immediately taken in hand by 7-year-old Olive for a tour of modern wonders—early versions of which many, from electrical appliances in the kitchen to the Illinois town’s public library and fire department, he justly lays claim to inventing. Meanwhile big brother Nolan, 10, tags along, frantic to return him to his own era before either their divorced mom or snoopy classmate Tommy Tuttle sees him. Fleming, author of Ben Franklin’s Almanac (2003) (and also, not uncoincidentally considering the final scene of this outing, Our Eleanor, 2005), mixes history with humor as the great man dispenses aphorisms and reminiscences through diverse misadventures, all of which end well, before vanishing at last. Following a closing, sequel-cueing kicker (see above) she then separates facts from fancies in closing notes, with print and online leads to more of the former. To go with spot illustrations of the evidently all-white cast throughout the narrative, Fearing incorporates change-of-pace sets of sequential panels for Franklin’s biographical and scientific anecdotes. Final illustrations not seen.
It’s not the first time old Ben has paid our times a call, but it’s funny and free-spirited, with an informational load that adds flavor without weight. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-93406-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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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