A breath of fresh air in its beauty and simplicity.
A retelling of an old Chinese folk tale emphasizes the goodness of its protagonist.
Young Tuan was orphaned as a little boy and raised by kindly neighbors who, when he is old enough, hire a matchmaker for him. The first match is no good, as their zodiacal symbols clash; the second founders on symbolic disagreement between their name characters. The third looks promising symbolically, but Tuan is just “too poor for her parents to approve.” Gathering cabbages by moonlight, Tuan spots a large snail and brings it home, keeping it in a jar and feeding it cabbage leaves. Over each of the next several days, Tuan arrives home to find his table set with a delicious dinner on it. Curious, he comes home early the next evening to discover a beautiful woman emerging from the snail’s jar; sent by the Lord of Heaven to look after him until he marries, she must now leave as she may not be gazed upon by mortals—but she leaves her shell behind, and it never runs out of rice. Hsyu’s retelling has a folkloric simplicity, planting just enough details to ground readers in the traditional tale. Pak’s mixed-media illustrations evoke a misty, long-ago agrarian China, his expressive, angular faces contrasting pleasingly with fluid, lovingly created backdrops. Although there is a concluding note on Chinese calligraphy, there is nothing to source the story itself.
A breath of fresh air in its beauty and simplicity. (Picture book/folk tale. 3-7)Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-909263-41-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Great gobs of glue should be more fun than this. (Picture book. 4-7)
Can there be too much glue? Matty’s about to find out.
Matty’s art teacher warns him that too much glue will never dry, but Matty (and his dad) loves glue; they play with it constantly. So Matty finds the “fullest” bottle in the art room and squirts it all over his project. Then he flops down in the middle of the mess…and gets stuck. He’s “a blucky stucky mess!” His friends try to lasso him with yarn and haul him out, but the yarn breaks and gets stuck; now, he’s “a clingy stringy, blucky stucky mess.” A Lego tow truck snaps apart in another rescue attempt, making him a “click-brick, clingy stringy, blucky stucky mess!” When the bell rings, the glue’s dry, and dad must peel gluey Matty off the table. At home, he’s divested of his glue suit, and Dad puts a magnet on it and sticks it to the fridge. After dinner, the family explores the fun of duct tape. Despite the busy plot and superabundance of exclamation marks, Lefebvre’s debut never rises to the level of mayhem or fun it aspires to. The cumulative portion of the tale loses rhyme, rhythm and logic six pages before it ends. Retz’s Photoshop paintings are bright, wide-eyed and goofy, but they can’t add enough fun to compensate for the lackluster text.
Great gobs of glue should be more fun than this. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-9362612-7-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flashlight Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
Perhaps youngsters who think they are more interested in football than reading will take the message to heart.
New England Patriot and literacy advocate Mitchell proves to have a touch of magic as an author as well as on the field.
It’s Family Fun Day at the library, and families of many sizes, constellations, and skin tones are participating. Amid book scavenger hunts and storytelling, a magician arrives. He is white and lanky, sporting a purple polka-dot vest and a bright yellow ascot. But most importantly, he has a very large, mysterious hat. He tells the children how he came to Family Fun Day when he was younger and read his very first book about magic in the library. Turning the pages and getting lost in the words inspired him to become a magician. He realized that it wasn’t just about spells and potions, but that books themselves are magical. Three children reach into the hat and find books about their future professions—Amy, a white girl, is a dentist; Matt, a bespectacled black boy, is a football player; and Ryan, a white boy, is an astronaut. The magician then turns the hat to readers, asking, “What are your dreams?” Previously self-published, the work gets a new look from Lew-Vriethoff’s bustling library and bright swirls of magic and bookish motivation. As an entry in the books-are-awesome genre, it’s mostly distinguished by the author’s clear belief in his message.
Perhaps youngsters who think they are more interested in football than reading will take the message to heart. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-11454-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
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