When the cover is spread to its full width, two huge eyes stare from behind broad green leaves, perhaps the most striking painting in this entry from Cowcher (Tigress, 1991, etc.), who continues to address the issue of coexistence between humans and nature. Each spread becomes a wide canvas for color, shape, and form as Cowcher shows her subject—a jaguar—stalked by a hunter in the Venezuelan Llanos, a flood plain that is home to many animal, bird, and reptile species, even during the dry season. Tracks left in the dust are the key to this king of the food chain; the hunter— worried about his cattle—follows the signs, past iguana, blue morpho butterfly, and caiman, into the forest where the jaguar, an equally expert hunter, catches a howler monkey. There is mild suspense when the man finds his prey, only to experience a transformation: ``The hunter's will to kill deserts him. He sinks to his knees in wonder at such power and beauty.'' The jaguar is spared—``The land belongs to the jaguar as much as to him.'' As in Lynne Cherry's The Great Kapok Tree (1989), noble sentiments overwhelm the story. The simplicity of the text cannot bear the complexity of such a spiritual vision, which is not explained in context, but in a note that addresses the meaning of the ``raging jaguar spirit'' to the Central and South American hunters. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-590-29937-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1997
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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