A quick and comical gallop into the world of ideas.
Imported from France, Platonic realism for preteens, introduced by the great philosopher himself.
“Why is a horse called a horse” instead of, say, a giraffe? Or, for that matter, “flapdoodle”? Just to keep this all as far as possible from becoming a weighty discourse, a toga-clad, woolly-bearded White gent—plainly a philosopher—leads a Socratic-style enquiry loosely based on the Cratylus dialogue that sets up and culminates in an elaborate, fantastic pun. He then goes on to explain that “Plato” is a nickname that translates (very freely) as “Muscleman” and challenges readers to find out where their own names come from. Shibuya’s illustrations helpfully sustain the tone with images of onlookers in antique dress and vaguely Grecian settings along with various creatures led by a smirking horse, all set amid multiple flaps, small pop-ups, die-cut holes, and, at the end, a foil mirror. An attempt to make the point that “horse” is not a universal term goes off the rails, being both confusingly phrased and illustrated with a group of riders clad in stereotypical Native American and like ethnic garb. Otherwise, following Ronan de Calan and Donatien Mary’s The Ghost of Karl Marx, translated by Anna Street (2015), and other entries in the Plato & Co. series, this outing may dip barely a toe into its philosophical waters but does at least begin to demystify them. Stylized human figures throughout show mild differentiation in racial presentation and body type.
A quick and comical gallop into the world of ideas. (Informational novelty. 8-12)Pub Date: June 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-3-0358-0275-7
Page Count: 42
Publisher: Diaphanes/Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative,...
Can this really be the first time readers meet the Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County? Cousins and veteran sleuths Otto and Sheed Alston show us that we are the ones who are late to their greatness.
These two black boys are coming to terms with the end of their brave, heroic summer at Grandma’s, with a return to school just right around the corner. They’ve already got two keys to the city, but the rival Epic Ellisons—twin sisters Wiki and Leen—are steadily gaining celebrity across Logan County, Virginia, and have in hand their third key to the city. No way summer can end like this! These young people are powerful, courageous, experienced adventurers molded through their heroic commitment to discipline and deduction. They’ve got their shared, lifesaving maneuvers committed to memory (printed in a helpful appendix) and ready to save any day. Save the day they must, as a mysterious, bendy gentleman and an oversized, clingy platypus have been unleashed on the city of Fry, and all the residents and their belongings seem to be frozen in time and place. Will they be able to solve this one? With total mastery, Giles creates in Logan County an exuberant vortex of weirdness, where the commonplace sits cheek by jowl with the utterly fantastic, and populates it with memorable characters who more than live up to their setting.
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative, thrill-seeking readers, this is a series to look out for. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-46083-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
A thoughtful and entertaining story of how we got from trading a pig for a sack of rye to “Chapter Fifteen: In which we...
A snappy course in the evolution of exchange.
Jenkins is thorough but not so thorough as to make the dismal science dismal to his readers. He offers lively explanations for barter, then refinements on the bartering system and the moment when parties agreed upon a medium of exchange: wampum, gemstones—and gold, in all its luster, its malleability, its exquisiteness. From there, he takes readers to weights and measures; banks, black markets and usury; interest earned and interest paid; inflation and deflation; crashes and runs on banks. Maybe because there has been enough already, Jenkins steers clear of loan-sharking and what happens when you can’t pay your debt. It’s all related in a simple, colloquial style that will keep readers engaged: “Wouldn’t it be handy if you could swap your goat for something easy to keep and carry around and that everybody wanted?” The text is urged along by the fine illustrations of Kitamura, which sometimes hint at the old Johnny Hart comic strip “B.C.,” with its touch of subversive humor. Jenkins closes with a caution: “[T]here’s a danger that you start believing that buying and selling are the only important things in life”—how many economics textbooks include that?
A thoughtful and entertaining story of how we got from trading a pig for a sack of rye to “Chapter Fifteen: In which we discover how easy it is for money to disappear.” (author’s note, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6763-4
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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