Pass.
The traditions and history of one of Mexico’s most important holidays are introduced in this latest of Eliot’s Celebrate the World series.
From setting up the flower-festooned altars to decorating the calaveras, the preparations depicted involve entire communities over several weeks. Characters in cowboy hats, sombreros, and baseball caps place the final touches on skeletons in full lucha libre regalia or spangled mariachi outfits. However, instead of accurately using Mexico’s name for the holiday, Día de Muertos, Eliot uses the English back-translation, “Día de los Muertos,” as is common in the U.S. even though the story evidently takes place in Mexico. Also, aside from stating that the celebration “is an ancient tradition,” there is no mention of its Indigenous, pre-European/Christian roots nor does the book actively distinguish between Día de Muertos and Halloween. The first-person narration vacillates between child and adult perspectives. “We do all this to celebrate the beauty of life and death rather than mourn it.” Gutierrez’s mixed-media illustrations are convulsive, crowded panes of frenetic activity. Exaggerated facial features border on stereotypical caricatures—snouts and bug eyes abound. Contributing to the crowded page design is the unfortunate choice of board rather than picture-book format. Consequently, the initial perception is that this series is geared toward toddlers, when it is the school-age child who would most benefit from the information in this book.
Pass. (Board book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1515-7
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
Skip.
Jesus pops up.
“It had been three days since Jesus died on a cross, and his friends were sad.” So Traini (The Life of Martin Luther, 2017) opens his ingenuously retold version of the first Easter. Beginning with two unnamed women clambering down a rocky hill to the graveyard, each of the seven tableaux features human figures with oversized eyes, light brown skin, and solemn or awed expressions posing in a sparsely decorated setting. The women hurry off at the behest of the angel lounging casually in a tomb bedecked with large crystals and fossil seashells to inform the “other disciples” of what’s happened. Along the way the women meet Jesus himself (“Greetings, my friends!”), who goes on to urge disciples “hiding inside a locked room” to touch his discreetly wounded hands. He later shares breakfast (“fish, of course!”) with Peter and others, then ascends from a mountaintop to heaven. Though the 3-D art and the flashes of irreverence set this sketchy rendition of the story apart from more conventional versions, the significance of the event never really comes clear…nor can it match for depth of feeling the stately likes of Jan Pienkowski’s Easter (1983). In the final scene Pentecostal flames appear over the heads of the disciples, leaving them endowed with the gift of tongues and eager to spread the “good news about Jesus!”
Skip. (Pop-up picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5064-3340-0
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Sparkhouse
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet interplanetary message from a narrator who sounds for all the world like a younger version of the one in Markus...
Greetings from Curiosity, roving the red planet since 2012!
With a wave of its arm, Curiosity introduces itself and the barren Martian landscape (“No humans have ever been here before. Isn’t that cool?”), then, while sending a celebratory selfie back to friends on Earth, sings “Happy birthday to me”—a ditty it actually was programmed to hum, though just on the first anniversary of its landing. In his blocky painted illustrations, Ross sends the excitable rover (“Oops—I made a dust cloud! I guess I should slow down”) trundling through a Martian sunset while extolling the virtue for which it was named, then switches planetary settings to show some of Curiosity’s “billions of friends” (or a diverse crowd of them, at least) gathered in a science museum for the party. With its boxlike, six-wheeled body, single arm, and red-lensed camera on a movable stalk, the rover manages to project lots of personality. For readers who are still, well, curious, Schonfeld closes with a page of Mars and Mars rover facts, plus the news that a new rover will be on its way in the near future. With its diminutive trim, the book even recalls a birthday card.
A sweet interplanetary message from a narrator who sounds for all the world like a younger version of the one in Markus Motum’s more seriously detailed Curiosity (2018). (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: June 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9122-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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