The latest of Yolen's remote, complacent fables concerns a sultan who decrees perfection everywhere. When a real tree isn't perfect he has a symmetrical, unblemished one painted on his window. But this of course must be redone for every season, and when in summer the artist can't make one that will "bend and sway with the weight of its ripe fruit," a servant girl bares the window to reveal the imperfect but beautiful real tree. Thus the sultan learns what Yolen has yet to realize—that living and growing and changing is better than being perfect. Like the painted tree, the moral is unassailable but sterile. And though the flat, static formality of Garrison's Eastern-gingerbread decorations is intentional, that doesn't make them any more interesting.
Pub Date: March 1, 1977
ISBN: 0819308641
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Parents Magazine Press
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1977
After Castro’s takeover, nine-year-old Julian and his older brothers are sent away by their fearful parents via “Operation Pedro Pan” to a camp in Miami for Cuban-exile children. Here he discovers that a ruthless bully has essentially been put in charge. Julian is quicker-witted than his brothers or anyone else ever imagined, though, and with his inherent smarts, developing maturity and the help of child and adult friends, he learns to navigate the dynamics of the camp and surroundings and grows from the former baby of the family to independence and self-confidence. A daring rescue mission at the end of the novel will have readers rooting for Julian even as it opens his family’s eyes to his courage and resourcefulness. This autobiographical novel is a well-meaning, fast-paced and often exciting read, though at times the writing feels choppy. It will introduce readers to a not-so-distant period whose echoes are still felt today and inspire admiration for young people who had to be brave despite frightening and lonely odds. (Historical fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59643-168-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
Unimpeachable.
A nearly wordless exploration of Aesop’s fable of symbiotic mercy that is nothing short of masterful.
A mouse, narrowly escaping an owl at dawn, skitters up what prove to be a male lion’s tail and back. Lion releases Mouse in a moment of bemused gentility and—when subsequently ensnared in a poacher’s rope trap—reaps the benefit thereof. Pinkney successfully blends anthropomorphism and realism, depicting Lion’s massive paws and Mouse’s pink inner ears along with expressions encompassing the quizzical, hapless and nearly smiling. He plays, too, with perspective, alternating foreground views of Mouse amid tall grasses with layered panoramas of the Serengeti plain and its multitudinous wildlife. Mouse, befitting her courage, is often depicted heroically large relative to Lion. Spreads in watercolor and pencil employ a palette of glowing amber, mouse-brown and blue-green. Artist-rendered display type ranges from a protracted “RRROAARRRRRRRRR” to nine petite squeaks from as many mouselings. If the five cubs in the back endpapers are a surprise, the mouse family of ten, perched on the ridge of father lion’s back, is sheer delight.
Unimpeachable. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-01356-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2009
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