Adopting similar tones and voices, two poets exchange generally somber observations in verse about 15 stone castles and palaces, plus a “Castle in the Air” from Viking legend. From “Mysterious Bodiam Castle, / Floating upon a pond” in East Sussex to Hearst Castle, occupied by “Sir Prince of Print,” each castle has a distinctive character, and receives a tribute laced with historical allusions. Included are Anne Boleyn’s sad end in the Tower of London, Leonardo da Vinci’s staircase in France’s elegant Chambord, Dracula’s (“The Count who loved to take blood counts / In very, very large amounts”) supposed connection to Romania’s Bran Castle, Richard II’s imprisonment in Austria’s Dürnstein and so on. Though readers who want detailed views of each fortress will have to look elsewhere, Burr sets the poems into spread-sized scenes of realistically depicted knights in armor, richly appointed chambers, dim stone passages and glimpses of looming walls or ruins, all of which strongly enhance the overall Romantic atmosphere. Dreamers will latch on to the poems and pictures; for young historians, the poets close with prose notes, a timeline and a robust reading list. (Poetry. 8-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-59078-380-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2006
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)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-399-23998-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
This oversized companion to the much ballyhooed My Very First Mother Goose (1996) will take toddlers and ex-toddlers deeper into the playscapes of the language, to meet Old King Cole, Old Mother Hubbard, and Dusty Bill From Vinegar Hill; to caper about the mulberry bush, polka with My Aunt Jane, and dance by the light of the moon. Mixing occasional humans into her furred and feathered cast, Wells creates a series of visual scenarios featuring anywhere from one big figure, often dirty or mussed, to every single cat on the road to St. Ives (over a thousand). Opie cuts longer rhymes down to two or three verses, and essays a sly bit of social commentary by switching the answers to what little girls and boys are made of. Though Wells drops the ball with this last, legitimizing the boys’ presence in a kitchen by dressing them as chefs, in general the book is plainly the work of a match made in heaven, and merits as much popularity as its predecessor. (Folklore. 1-6)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7636-0683-9
Page Count: 107
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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