Go straight down the rabbit hole—there is no need to dally in this vapid imitation of the original.
Does Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland need this prequel?
In this innocuous attempt to fill in Alice’s backstory, the young girl is a student at “the dreariest board school in all of England.” Just as in the film version of The Wizard of Oz, the illustrations are primarily black and white until Alice enters a walled garden outside the school. Paintings in lovely pastel shades take over, and from then on, Alice’s world changes. She is depicted in color, while the rest of her unkind classmates stay black and white, even when they enter the idealized garden. Her kindness to creatures she finds in the garden—a rabbit, a caterpillar, and a lory bird (a type of small parrot)—endear her to them, and they, in turn, become characters familiar from the classic: the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar (not smoking a hookah), and the Gryphon, respectively. When Alice’s bullying classmates try to steal the lovely things that her new friends have provided (a roomful of beautiful objects, a gold pocket watch, and special tarts labeled “Eat Me”), the creatures harass the other girls. Best of all, the magical trio promises friendship forever. The paintings exhibit an agreeable Victorian prettiness but have none of the strength of John Tenniel’s iconic drawings or of Helen Oxenbury’s more recent interpretations. Alice is depicted with flowing blonde locks, pale skin, and vacant blue eyes that match her dress, and her classmates are likewise white. This version of the beginning of Alice’s story adds nothing to the Carroll book that has symbolized wonder and enchantment for readers for over 150 years.
Go straight down the rabbit hole—there is no need to dally in this vapid imitation of the original. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64170-032-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Familius
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lovely and evocative, just the thing to spark an interest in the original and its sequels—and the upcoming film sequel, Mary...
Refined, spit-spot–tidy illustrations infuse a spare adaptation of the 1934 classic with proper senses of decorum and wonder.
Novesky leaves out much—the Bird Woman, Adm. Boom, that ethnically problematic world tour, even Mr. and Mrs. Banks—but there’s still plenty going on. Mary Poppins introduces Jane and Michael (their twin younger sibs are mentioned but seem to be left at home throughout) to the Match-Man and the buoyant Mr. Wigg, lets them watch Mrs. Corry and her daughters climb tall ladders to spangle the night sky with gilt stars, and takes them to meet the zoo animals (“Bird and beast, star and stone—we are all one,” says the philosophical bear). At last, when the wind changes, she leaves them with an “Au revoir!” (“Which means, Dear Reader, ‘to meet again.’ ”) Slender and correct, though with dangling forelocks that echo and suggest the sweeping curls of wind that bring her in and carry her away, Mary Poppins takes the role of impresario in Godbout’s theatrically composed scenes, bearing an enigmatic smile throughout but sharing with Jane and Michael (and even the parrot-headed umbrella) an expression of wide-eyed, alert interest as she shepherds them from one marvelous encounter to the next. The Corrys have brown skin; the rest of the cast presents white.
Lovely and evocative, just the thing to spark an interest in the original and its sequels—and the upcoming film sequel, Mary Poppins Returns, which opens in December 2018. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-91677-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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