A beautifully crafted world to get lost in.
In a mountaintop village where everything—including its population—is made of paper, residents must find the source of a mysterious wind.
Skilled in the art of kirigami (or paper folding), the denizens of Paperlee lead happy lives, fearing only the wind that blows for five and a half days each year. But one day a worryingly unseasonal wind arrives, apparently from Forestlee, the village on the neighboring mountain. Anya, a young girl who’s especially talented at kirigami, decides to find out more. She designs a paper bridge and then crosses the chasm separating the two mountains. In Forestlee, strong, solid trees hold houses that don’t bend in the wind; readers will recognize that everything here is made from cardboard. The young diplomat not only learns the cause of the new wind, but also solves the problem to everyone’s satisfaction and unites the people of both villages, who share their skills with one another. Appropriately, Ratanavanh relied on kirigami for the book’s illustrations, intricately cutting, folding, and assembling paper into three-dimensional scenes that were then photographed. Translated from French, the story reads like a parable, drawing readers into a setting like our own but ever so slightly off-kilter, while the exquisite illustrations are rife with small details for those who choose to linger. Clothing and other details cue the residents of Paperlee as East Asian, while the people of Forestlee vary in skin tone and wear Western-style dress.
A beautifully crafted world to get lost in. (about the book's creation) (Picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781782509073
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Floris
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.
Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.
Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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