The ever fluent (and prolific) Yolen offers 19 poems, written over ten years, on a single, well-worn topic—proving that there's always more to say about this near neighbor, potent image, and spur to the imagination. For would-be poets, the variety here is instructive: rueful humor (the moon as a source of "unwanted stuff," including "Mrs. Ashkenazi/who taught me second grade,/and any book to be found/in the dentist's waiting room"); references to various cultures (a "Brazilian Moon Tale" describes the animals nibbling the moon, night by night); lyrical descriptions; intriguing images ("The moon is a sickle/For pruning the stars,/For thinning out Venus/And weeding out Mars..."). Councell's illustrations feature softly rounded figures against dreamy landscapes or a starry sky, rendered in a gentle, grayed palette that centers on violet as it ranges from green to rose. An appealingly cozy offering, just right for bedtime sharing. (Poetry/Picture book. 4-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 27, 1993
ISBN: 0-399-22501-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1993
A good collection of poems and quick tales that packs a little Halloween chill. Adinolfi’s (Fred’s Bed, 2001, etc.) art has the right mixture of daffy and spooky—eerie faces and clacking skeletons, in strong colors—to set the tone for these six stories, a couple of which have comical edges, but mostly have a solid, creepy quality. Two are cautionary tales: One involves a couple of girls who visit one house too many on Halloween night, the other an irresponsible bully boy who refuses to bring back a library book. One provides a shock: “Then Sally Bibble drew a little scribble / that looked a lot like Baby Bibble. / They never found her baby sister. / Sally Bibble hardly missed her.” And a couple leave strange things unexplained, though older characters think they have figured out the queer happenings: a house that echoes even when it’s not empty, and a mysterious tap tap tapping. The text is also pitch-perfect for beginning readers, with just enough challenge to the words and a narrative momentum that pulls readers right along. (Easy reader. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-028456-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2002
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
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