A deep subtext of love and loss, childhood and awakening, power and trust resonate through these pages at least as strongly...
One of the great illustrators of our time takes on one of the knottier Andersen fairy tales, producing a gorgeous and winning result.
MacDonald’s retelling hews closely to Andersen’s original in all its complexity but without its Christian allusions. It begins with a prologue: A wicked troll creates a mirror in which everything good looks hideous, and everything evil looks entrancing. The mirror breaks into millions of tiny pieces and pollutes the world. In winter, when Gerda’s grandmother tells the story of the Snow Queen to Gerda and her friend Kai, the window flies open, and Kai is pierced by a tiny shard of the troll mirror. He insults Gerda, dashes outside and is whisked away on his sled by the Snow Queen herself. Gerda does not believe he is dead and searches through many adventures and adversities to find and rescue him. Ibatoulline’s paintings are a wonder of form and color. On one spread, the icy queen wraps Kai completely in her blue and gray fur blanket; on the next, Gerda takes a boat on a sunlit river in a golden spring to find him. There are princesses and robbers, mysterious crows and talking reindeer. Ibatoulline renders the northern lights more exquisitely than any photograph.
A deep subtext of love and loss, childhood and awakening, power and trust resonate through these pages at least as strongly as the magnificent images. (Picture book/fairy tale. 7-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-220950-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013
Lively fun with animal friends.
Has Plum’s pep deserted him?
Several animals from the Athensville Zoo are on their way to visit an elementary school. Overconfident Itch the ningbing (an Australian marsupial), unaware that zookeeper Lizzie will be doing all the talking, looks forward to “lecturing eager young minds.” Plum, the usually chipper peacock, on the other hand, is anxious—maybe the schoolchildren won’t like him or he’ll get lost. So when they arrive at the school to find the students have been sent home due to a blizzard, Plum is relieved. The animals are left in a school gym for the night until three self-important class mice free them. Itch heads for the library to meet the learned turtle, but Plum reluctantly explores with his friends. When his anxiety peaks, they reassure him, and when the mice reject Meg, another peacock, as “borrrring” and uncool, they buoy her as well before everyone comes together to save Itch, who finds himself outside and stranded in a snowdrift. Unlike Leave It to Plum (2022), this is not a mystery, and the relationship focus shifts from Lizzie to the rodents, but the pace is brisk, and sequel seekers will be pleased to revisit familiar characters (if dismayed that Itch’s longing for knowledge leads to his downfall). In Phelan’s engaging grayscale pen-and-wash illustrations, Lizzie has short curly hair; text and art cue her as Latine.
Lively fun with animal friends. (how to draw Plum) (Chapter book. 7-10)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-307920-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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