An imaginative work featuring intriguingly weird art that lives up the creator’s desire for “wonder and whimsy.”
A debut, sepia-toned alphabet book from steampunk street artist The Impossible Winterbourne, designed to please both adults and young readers.
This book takes a surreal tone from the start, as the author welcomes readers to Winterbourne Workshop—which is also the name of his real-world art shop. An alphabet follows, featuring strange and frequently wonderful robots. On each two-page spread, a letter, printed in an old-fashioned typewriter typeface, is framed and placed against a muted, tapestrylike background. Below it is a description of a robot whose name begins with the same letter, illustrated in mixed-media on the facing page. Some of the best examples include the AquaBot, an underwater automaton who wears an old-fashioned diving helmet; the EcoBot, who’s made from sticks and has a tree growing from its head; and the IdeaBot, whose head is an old-fashioned lightbulb. Each one’s design has a steampunk flair, but some are eerier than others and might be off-putting to sensitive young readers; the GhostBot, for example, has rusted chains and a sad expression, and the ZombiBot is suitably grotesque with frayed wires and an exposed brain. The poetry scans well throughout, and the rhymes create a nice read-aloud cadence. VoodooBot, however, is an unfortunate misstep that reinforces negative stereotypes of that religion. For the most part, though, this is an inventive book that’s similar in tone and content to Neil Gaiman’s The Dangerous Alphabet or Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies.
An imaginative work featuring intriguingly weird art that lives up the creator’s desire for “wonder and whimsy.”Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-74378-2
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Mascot Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it.
What happens when a robot washes up alone on an island?
“Everything was just right on the island.” Brown beautifully re-creates the first days of Roz, the protagonist of his Wild Robot novels, as she adapts to living in the natural world. A storm-tossed ship, seen in the opening just before the title page, and a packing crate are the only other human-made objects to appear in this close-up look at the robot and her new home. Roz emerges from the crate, and her first thought as she sets off up a grassy hill—”This must be where I belong”—is sweetly glorious, a note of recognition rather than conquest. Roz learns to move, hide, and communicate like the creatures she meets. When she discovers an orphaned egg—and the gosling Brightbill, who eventually hatches—her decision to be his mother seems a natural extension of her adaptation. Once he flies south for the winter, her quiet wait across seasons for his return is a poignant portrayal of separation and change. Brown’s clean, precise lines and deep, light-filled colors offer a sense of what Roz might be seeing, suggesting a place that is alive yet deeply serene and radiant. Though the book stands alone, it adds an immensely appealing dimension to Roz’s world. Round thumbnails offer charming peeks into the island world, depicting Roz’s animal neighbors and Brightbill’s maturation.
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780316669467
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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