This volume is sure to find an audience.
This collection of fairy tales from around the world positions girl characters as adventurers.
Nearly every continent is represented here, with stories from Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Nigeria, Lesotho, Iran, Siberia, China, India, Russia, Japan, the Iroquois Nation, and more. Each story is three or four pages long, printed on paper of various attractive colors, with illustrations adorning some text-heavy pages and full-page or double-page–spread illustrations interspersed with others. The main characters are girls who face challenges from natural disasters, from families forcing them into marriages, from supernatural beings that threaten their families, villages, and kingdoms. For various reasons, they go out to save their husbands, to prove their bravery and skill, to escape, or to protect their homes. Like most fairy tales, these stories contain the inexplicable and the limited, such as a young woman who slays a dragon in order to provide her brothers with the fine clothing they demand. Still, compared to the traditional formula of a damsel in distress who is rescued, married, and lives happily ever after, these offer a welcome disruption. The girls and women are clever, courageous, and active, and they shape their own stories, if within the confines of their situations. The pictures add an engaging rest for the eyes, though the illustration of the Chinese characters suffers from racist overtones in the depiction of closed, slanted eyes.
This volume is sure to find an audience. (background, talking points, index) (Fairy tales. 5-10)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68010-256-7
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
A cheery story that “wool” likely evoke some smiles.
A “baa”-nd of pirates gets the wool pulled over their eyes.
After a treasure-hunting foray, Captain Hoof and his crew of fleecy sheep are homeward bound with a glittery bounty—the lost Golden Shears, which once belonged to the infamous Woolly Jones. Suddenly, huge waves engulf and smash their ship. They’re sheepwrecked and stranded on Foggy Island, home to none other than Woolly Jones. After nearly a month of failed attempts to get off the island, Captain Hoof decides to return the shears to their rightful owner. Trekking across the island through fog as thick and impenetrable as wool, captain and crew eventually bump into their nemesis, who snatches the shears from the captain’s hooves. Expecting dire consequences, everyone starts to flee, but things turn out wool, er, well. In a 90-degree book turn, Woolly is depicted using the shears to give himself a much-needed “woolcut.” He’s grateful for the shears—and for the company after a long, lonely spell. Captain Hoof and crew are delighted at this outcome. This is a cute tale, though the plot is a bit thin; the numerous, amusing sheep puns will appeal more to grown-ups than kids. But the digital illustrations are comical and dynamic, and the all-ovine protagonists are lively and expressive. The book contains lots of typographical creativity, including some onomatopoeic words, incorporated into the artwork, and maps in the endpapers include islands bearing funny, aptly punny names.
A cheery story that “wool” likely evoke some smiles. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: July 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780593569665
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
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