Impacted writing and resplendent illustration at the service of an authentically harrowing, distinctively satisfying story: it starts with Satan and ends with heavenly light, and you believe it. For many years Doboshova, the witch, and Lapitut, her half-devil husband, have preyed upon the travelers who come to their inn; as servants, they hold captive three girls, Reitze, Leitze and Neitze. On a stormy day, three young men arrive, and one among them, Leibel, a student of the cabala, has a magic gift, a piece of chalk that will imprison anyone in the circle he draws. While the three are washing before dinner, each has a nightmare; before they can take a bite of the food that will deprive them of all will, Leibel recognizes Doboshova and Lapitut as the witch and monster in his dream. By a ruse, he locks them in a circle of chalk, and the threats and ruses of all the evil spirits of the forest are of no avail: Leibel will not free them until they agree in blood to go away forever. This done, the six sort themselves out and marry quite satisfactorily (though all three girls wanted Leibel to start with). Leibel and Neitze remain at the inn, running it as a hostel, and in time it becomes known, through his studies, as the greatest academy of the cabala. The synopsis is and is not the story: always there is ancient magic pitted against ancient mischief, and an occasional turn of the screw. The drawings have to be seen, as does the book, impeccably produced down to paper and type; the story must be read, by adults as well as children, but best together.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1967
ISBN: 068970769X
Page Count: 46
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1967
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite.
Humpty Dumpty, classically portrayed as an egg, recounts what happened after he fell off the wall in Santat’s latest.
An avid ornithophile, Humpty had loved being atop a high wall to be close to the birds, but after his fall and reassembly by the king’s men, high places—even his lofted bed—become intolerable. As he puts it, “There were some parts that couldn’t be healed with bandages and glue.” Although fear bars Humpty from many of his passions, it is the birds he misses the most, and he painstakingly builds (after several papercut-punctuated attempts) a beautiful paper plane to fly among them. But when the plane lands on the very wall Humpty has so doggedly been avoiding, he faces the choice of continuing to follow his fear or to break free of it, which he does, going from cracked egg to powerful flight in a sequence of stunning spreads. Santat applies his considerable talent for intertwining visual and textual, whimsy and gravity to his consideration of trauma and the oft-overlooked importance of self-determined recovery. While this newest addition to Santat’s successes will inevitably (and deservedly) be lauded, younger readers may not notice the de-emphasis of an equally important part of recovery: that it is not compulsory—it is OK not to be OK.
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62672-682-6
Page Count: 45
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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