John Gardner's variations on fairy tales have been marked by a polished and fanciful cleverness, but these unpretentiously witty rhymes are an altogether more genuine pleasure. Gardner's lines and meters are as ragged as the stock representations drawn by members of his family—but looser and more spontaneously playful. When he promises morals such as the medieval bestiaries provided, you know they won't be straight; but Gardner's are not the spoofy addenda of a latter-day Belloc. (Witness "The Cobra" whose ever-acquiescent victims learn too late that "They might as well have told the truth.") He makes his share of comparisons to human behavior, as with the baboon's alleged habit of dropping rocks over cliffs even though his attacker might be above and behind him: ". . . Clearly this strategy doesn't always pay./ But why change a method you've got down pat?" Elsewhere his variously edifying and delighting creatures include a realistic armadillo (". . . For unlike people who are more complex/ He prays for nothing but what he expects"), a sensitive buzzard (who broods because ". . . a Buzzard's like anyone else in that/ He doesn't like being shuddered at"), a deceptively graceful swan (actually "she's paddling like crazy"), and a pesky, anachronistic possum to whom—after the Son argues that "he's got to go"—God whispers, "Lie down. Play dead." Sly, sparkling fun.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1977
ISBN: 0394834836
Page Count: 98
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1977
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wow.
The stories of the births of the universe, the planet Earth, and a human child are told in this picture book.
Bauer begins with cosmic nothing: “In the dark / in the deep, deep dark / a speck floated / invisible as thought / weighty as God.” Her powerful words build the story of the creation of the universe, presenting the science in poetic free verse. First, the narrative tells of the creation of stars by the Big Bang, then the explosions of some of those stars, from which dust becomes the matter that coalesces into planets, then the creation of life on Earth: a “lucky planet…neither too far / nor too near…its yellow star…the Sun.” Holmes’ digitally assembled hand-marbled paper-collage illustrations perfectly pair with the text—in fact the words and illustrations become an inseparable whole, as together they both delineate and suggest—the former telling the story and the latter, with their swirling colors suggestive of vast cosmos, contributing the atmosphere. It’s a stunning achievement to present to readers the factual events that created the birth of the universe, the planet Earth, and life on Earth with such an expressive, powerful creativity of words paired with illustrations so evocative of the awe and magic of the cosmos. But then the story goes one brilliant step further and gives the birth of a child the same beginning, the same sense of magic, the same miracle.
Wow. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7883-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two.
Rollicking verses on “numerous” topics.
Returning to the theme of her Mathematickles! (2003), illustrated by Steven Salerno, Franco gathers mostly new ruminations with references to numbers or arithmetical operations. “Do numerals get out of sorts? / Do fractions get along? / Do equal signs complain and gripe / when kids get problems wrong?” Along with universal complaints, such as why 16 dirty socks go into a washing machine but only 12 clean ones come out or why there are “three months of summer / but nine months of school!" (“It must have been grown-ups / who made up / that rule!”), the poet offers a series of numerical palindromes, a phone number guessing game, a two-voice poem for performative sorts, and, to round off the set, a cozy catalog of countable routines: “It’s knowing when night falls / and darkens my bedroom, / my pup sleeps just two feet from me. / That watching the stars flicker / in the velvety sky / is my glimpse of infinity!” Tey takes each entry and runs with it, adding comically surreal scenes of appropriately frantic or settled mood, generally featuring a diverse group of children joined by grotesques that look like refugees from Hieronymous Bosch paintings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two. (Poetry/mathematical picture book. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0116-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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