The familiar tale of a child surviving a visit to Baba Yaga’s chicken-legged abode has never been told with more gusto. Dispatched on an errand to dreaded Grandma Chickenlegs’s house by her cruel stepmother (“a woman with eyes as sharp as needles and a soul as thin as a thread”), young Tatia escapes the witch three times, due to magic help and the advice of her beloved doll, Drooga. Using twisted perspectives and vigorously applied colors, Kemp creates a set of wild, garishly lit climactic scenes dominated by the grimacing, green-skinned granny—perfect counterpart to McCaughrean’s colorful prose style: “Around the garden, on four scratching, paltry poultry legs ran the rickety-rackety shack. Its fence was made from rattly bones.” Reunited in the end with her long-absent father, Tatia blows off her mother’s dying advice to “give and forgive,” triumphantly turning stepmother and stepsisters out on the street in their underclothes. This is a rousing alternative to Nonny Hogrogian’s subdued Vasilisa the Beautiful (1970) or Mariana Mayer’s coldly elegant Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave (1994). (Picture book/folklore. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1999
ISBN: 1-57505-415-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another woman-turned-warrior tale, this time set in Ireland. Brave adventurer Margaret longs to “learn what lay beyond the wide sea,” and seizes her first opportunity when the handsome son of a king, Simon, stumbles onto her farm. She mightily convinces him to take her aboard, and is soon felling sea serpents. This prefaces the real monster she must slay—giant who rendered her true love lifeless with the stroke of a club—but she is imprisoned by a sorceress hag who tells her that only the “champion” whose finger fits a silver ring can free the sword that will kill the giant. Margaret slips the ring on, exclaiming, “What fools we are for thinking it must be a man who slays that great, dirty giant!” With giant slain and true love returned from the dead, a wedding ensues. This story has it all: high seas, sorcery, sea serpents, the slaying of dragons, with a Maureen O’Hara—like spitfire at the heart of it all. San Souci conjures up large events and sweeps of time with a minimum of words. Comport casts Margaret as a long-necked, pale-skinned beauty with waves of red hair as fiery as her spirit. (Picture book/folklore. 5-9)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81072-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
A foolish hero, a featherbrained heroine, and a bevy of muddle-headed characters lead the cast in this wry retelling from Kellogg (The Three Little Pigs, 1997, etc.). When a buffoonish gentlemen courts a young maiden, he discovers that silliness is epidemic in her family. While getting some cider, the young maiden daydreams about her pending marriage, the birth of her son, his growth to manhood, and his death when a mallet “donks” him on the head. She begins crying, relates the sorry scenario to her parents, and sets them sobbing, too. The gentlemen sets out to find three people sillier than his future wife and in-laws, a task that is easier than he imagined, and he returns willingly to their fold. A close encounter with the mallet during the wedding festivities serves the gentleman a slice of crow as he ultimately appears the most foolish of all. Kellogg’s bright, cartoon-like illustrations coupled with the hilarious captions make for a raucous tale that pokes fun at the foibles of those who count themselves as serious. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7636-0811-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999
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