A wonderfully charming mixture of myth and fairy tale.
When her brave father is trapped inside the Sphinx, a fearful young girl must summon her courage to save him.
Marcy Brownstone’s father is a brave explorer who, in the previous volume, Arthur and the Golden Rope (2016), had exciting adventures based on Norse mythology. Harboring fears of the dark, Marcy worries she has not been imbued with the same fortitude as her father. When her father leaves on a quest to retrieve a magical book he believes will help her, he becomes trapped inside the Sphinx that holds it. Marcy must now gather up her resolve and carry out his rescue. This extrication is not without its challenges, as Marcy encounters larger-than-life Egyptian gods, including Thoth, Isis, and Ra. Weaving the theme of finding courage with a whimsical mix of Egyptian mythology, Todd-Stanton has constructed a remarkable world that both delights and edifies. The lush, immersive illustrations, with many full-page action sequences, are sure to enchant and envelop readers. Marcy’s white, heteronormative family gives a nod to conventional fairy-tale tropes with her nearly absent mother (who does make a fleeting cameo). However, Todd-Stanton weaves in a gentle feminist flourish as timid Marcy overcomes her fears to save her father and creates a thoughtfully distinctive take on the father-daughter relationship.
A wonderfully charming mixture of myth and fairy tale. (Picture book. 4-10)Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-19-5
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Experience the wonder of Lewis and Clark’s journey with the youngest expedition member.
Riding in a cradle board on his mother’s back, Sacagawea’s baby son Jean Baptiste provides a fresh perspective on Lewis and Clark’s monumental westward journey from Fort Mandan, N.D., across the northwestern United States to the Pacific and back between 1805 and 1806.
When Shoshoni guide Sacagawea embarks with the Lewis and Clark expedition, little Jean Baptiste tells readers, “Rolled in a rabbit hide, I am tucked snug in a cradle pack in the whipping cold of a new spring.” Along with Jean Baptiste, readers will sail the Missouri River, portage waterfalls, traverse snow-covered mountain passes on horseback, glide in canoes through canyons embellished with rock paintings, gather roots in rain forests, build winter camp and explore whale bones on Pacific shore. As seasons pass and landscapes change, Jean Baptiste describes tall grizzlies, sparkling salmon, prowling cougars, romping elk, racing ermine, clambering goats, jumping deer and buzzing bees with childlike wonder. Richly hued, realistic, digitally rendered illustrations capture the pristine grandeur of the American west and its first inhabitants. The wee narrator, Jean Baptiste, appears on his mother’s back or in her arms in every double-page spread with high plains, waterfalls, mountains, forests and ocean as backdrop until he runs free in the final scene.
Experience the wonder of Lewis and Clark’s journey with the youngest expedition member. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4169-9474-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
A few shipwrecks and less hand-wringing, and you'd have a good story.
Another misunderstood child. Another friendly stallion.
Young Ellie, still grieving her mother's death, is unhappy when her father takes a new job on remote Sable Island. This sand-shifting "Graveyard of the Atlantic," 25 miles long and one mile wide, causes multiple shipwrecks each year, and Ellie's father is joining a group of government rescue workers there. Ellie doesn't want to leave home, but within a few days of reaching Sable Island she's made friends with a wild stallion there. A few days after that, the villagers are holding their annual wild-horse roundup. Terrified that her new friend will be sold, Ellie begs her father for help. He suggests she—at 9 years old—lead the wild stallion to the far end of the island. Ellie does, and the stallion is saved (at least until next year). Hughes does well describing the physical setting but struggles with the temporal aspect. The author's note says the book takes place in the early 1800s, but the story and characters feel more modern than that. It's also hard to find the point—that Ellie doesn't want to leave her home? that the stallion shouldn't be captured?—and the pacing is far too abrupt for the emotional changes to be believable. It's too bad, because Sable Island itself is fascinating.
A few shipwrecks and less hand-wringing, and you'd have a good story. (Historical fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55453-592-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
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