Tailor Schmuel learned to make time useful, to work and not stop “until that old clock says so!” Consequently, Schmuel refuses to take time to understand a young girl’s request for a special white-and-blue dress with “a little red heart.” Days lead into months and years. Schmuel, now 41, laments his missed opportunity, but the clock on the wall urges him, “Tockety-tick tock! / I give you all the time you need! / Tickety-tock tick! / Just do it and you’ll be happy!” and turns time back, allowing him to create the dress, reverse his lonely fate and wed his beautifully dressed bride. GrandPré’s double-page spreads feature honey-gold and twilight-blue and -purple hues in combined gouache-and-fabric collage art and artfully depict a boy’s progression from child to man. Brown’s tale unfolds in an irregular poetic format with an uneven rhyme that guides the oral reader along. However enjoyable it sounds aloud, however, its message—of the value of second chances and stopping to live life in the now—seems aimed more at adults than children. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-06-078752-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Laura Geringer/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
In this original story, based on ``ancient texts,'' the day before the flood finds Noah gathering two of each animal, while God has exhorted Noah's wife, Naamah, to gather seeds from every flower and tree: ``Work quickly. The rains begin tomorrow.'' Naamah ties on an apron with many pockets and goes forth to gather spores, seeds, acorns, pine cones, and more, plants them in clay pots and carries them onto the ark to create Naamah's Garden. When the flood waters recede, she spreads her green and growing things over the land: ``Whenever someone digs in the earth and plants a seed, God remembers the Mother of Seed and Naamah's garden continues to grow.'' Sasso (But God Remembered, 1995, etc.) embroiders a brief reference to Noah's wife into an overlong tale that has charm, but lacks the power and beauty of older favorites. The illustrator has created primitive, dreamlike scenes of Naamah, Noah, and the animals (there are no children aboard this ark). Color washes, scratchboard techniques, and diagonal designs capture the motion of trees in the wind, and the whirling of the waters of the flood. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-879045-60-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Jewish Lights
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997
A storybook with echoes of Frances Hodgson Burnett—absentee parents, a lonely girl, an orphan who blossoms while working in a garden, children who meet clandestinely, away from the governess's eyes—from Hughes, who illustrated an edition of The Secret Garden: all the elements of an old-fashioned read, but precious and out-of-date. This lengthy fantasy is set in Italy in the early part of this century, where Valerie is guarded by her governess. Her father tends the hotels and restaurants he owns; her mother lives for parties. After Valerie communes with a statue of a boy on a dolphin, the boy comes to life, taking the name Cherubino and revealing himself to be the son of a sea god. Disgusted by the conditions of the seaside, Cherubino leaves to take his place as a god of the sea, but he and Valerie are certain they will meet again. Hughes's illustrations of Italian architecture and landscapes are delightful, but children may not be engrossed by the travelogue-style descriptions: ``a great, white palace set among palm trees and lush foliage, its domes and pinnacles melting into the blue haze.'' An obvious labor of love, the story has so many disparate components—Valerie's solitude, Cherubino as a stranger to be shunned, an ecological message about the cluttered seaside, romance, enchantment—that readers can't settle into it, or even believe in the connection between the two children. (Fiction. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-688-14597-3
Page Count: 64
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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