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
Meltzer and Fried demonstrate the practice of dedicating a new Jewish home in this sweet and gentle story of a boy and his family leaving a city apartment for a house in the suburbs. Like most children in a move situation, Noah is anxious and worries about missing all the familiar sounds of his building: Mr. Gollis’s allergic sneezes, Maya’s violin practice, the clanking of Mrs. Feldman’s dishwashing. It’s very quiet in the new house, but Noah and his parents get busy shopping for a mezuzah (the traditional doorpost case holding a small parchment prayer scroll) for Noah’s bedroom and invite all their old neighbors to a “Hanukkat Habayit,” the dedication open house. After mezuzahs are hung for each room, the noise of guests mingling, eating and listening to Maya’s violin helps Noah appreciate the quiet when all the guests leave. Yet he is grateful for their presence on this special day, because it solved his loneliness. Simply drawn and intricately designed illustrations in soft colors done in a multimedia style with watercolors, pencils, collage, pen/ink and a scratching technique round out this informative story that effectively brings closure to one little boy’s concerns. Concise explanation of the custom and prayer appended. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-58013-249-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kar-Ben
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
This one may be too stuck on the arc of the original tale to come alive in its own right. (Picture book. 5-7)
An extremely odd variant on "The Three Little Pigs."
It's time for Bork (two eyes, the sister), Gork (the one-eyed brother) and Nklxwcyz (three eyes, like their mom) to go out into the universe to find their own planets. Mom tells them to stick together and watch out for the Big Bad Robot. Bork chooses the red planet, and Gork is enchanted by the golden rings of another, but Nklxwcyz chooses Neptune and builds his house of space stuff and space junk. When the Big Bad Robot smashes Bork’s and Gork’s homes, they flee to Nklxwcyz, whose house is so strong that the Robot gets stuck in the telescope/chimney and explodes. The three children call mom, as exhorted, and she comes to tuck all three into bed. The green-skinned, red-haired or bald little aliens careen around the starry black universe with jetpacks and clear, round headgear, and there is some faint echo of charm in “ ‘Little alien! Little alien!’ it broinked. ‘COME OUT OF HIDING!’ / ‘Not by the orbit of this ring I’m riding!’ ” (The classic dialogue varies slightly from sibling to sibling.) It fails the logic test, though: The Big Bad Robot is fearsome, but there really doesn't seem to be a good reason for him to go after these kids.
This one may be too stuck on the arc of the original tale to come alive in its own right. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-86689-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
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