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PAUL REVERE’S RIDE

Name: PAUL REVERE’S RIDE
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
ISBN: 0-688-16552-4

THE LANDLORD’S TALE

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow & illustrated by Charles Santore ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2003

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Longfellow’s familiar verse comes to splendid life in dynamic paintings. Santore (Stowaway on Noah’s Ark, not reviewed, etc.) chooses to tell his tale as a story-within-a-story, as Longfellow did. He begins by placing Longfellow’s narrator, the landlord of the Wayside Inn, in his Windsor chair by the fireplace. All of his illustrations are full-bleed double-paged spreads, with the text in boxes. Darkling colors by firelight, candlelight, and moonlight display images of great movement and action: readers look into the belfry of the Old North Church from below the bells, they can almost hear the sound of Revere’s horse’s hooves on the cobblestones or the wooden bridge. Dramatic perspectives—above, below, beneath—create images of great force, matching the propulsive sound of the poetry. All of the figures seem to be in motion: soldiers, townspeople, and Revere himself, square-jawed and determined. “It was twelve by the village clock, / When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. / He heard the crowing of the cock, / And the barking of the farmer’s dog . . . ” Looking down on this scene from above that clock: the barking dog, men barefoot, but bearing muskets, the swirl of Revere’s cloak and the jittery shadows make a powerful picture. In all, a very different experience from the quieter drama of Monica Vachula’s Ride (above). (artist’s note) (Picture book/poetry. 7-12)

Pub Date: March 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-688-16552-4

Page Count: 40

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ; illustrated by G. Brian Karas

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SONG OF HIAWATHA
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow & illustrated by Margaret Early

- BOOK REVIEW
PAUL REVERE’S RIDE
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow & illustrated by Monica Vachula

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TWENTY-ONE ELEPHANTS AND STILL STANDING

by April Jones Prince & illustrated by François Roca ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 2005

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Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)

Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005

ISBN: 0-618-44887-X

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S HISTORY

- BOOK REVIEW
YOU ARE A READER! / YOU ARE A WRITER!
by April Jones Prince ; illustrated by Christine Davenier

- BOOK REVIEW
SNOWY RACE
by April Jones Prince ; illustrated by Christine Davenier

- BOOK REVIEW
101 TRUCKS
by April Jones Prince ; illustrated by Bob Kolar

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THE STORY OF SALT

by Mark Kurlansky & illustrated by S.D. Schindler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2006

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The author of Cod’s Tale (2001) again demonstrates a dab hand at recasting his adult work for a younger audience. Here the topic is salt, “the only rock eaten by human beings,” and, as he engrossingly demonstrates, “the object of wars and revolutions” throughout recorded history and before. Between his opening disquisition on its chemical composition and a closing timeline, he explores salt’s sources and methods of extraction, its worldwide economic influences from prehistoric domestication of animals to Gandhi’s Salt March, its many uses as a preservative and industrial product, its culinary and even, as the source for words like “salary” and “salad,” its linguistic history. Along with lucid maps and diagrams, Schindler supplies detailed, sometimes fanciful scenes to go along, finishing with a view of young folk chowing down on orders of French fries as ghostly figures from history look on. Some of Kurlansky’s claims are exaggerated (the Erie and other canals were built to transport more than just salt, for instance), and there are no leads to further resources, but this salutary (in more ways than one) micro-history will have young readers lifting their shakers in tribute. (Picture book/nonfiction. 8-10)