“When animals stand in the place of people and playfully speak their minds, this is what I call signifying,” writes Thomas (I Have Heard of a Land, 1998, etc.) in a foreword to this collection of fables set in a barnyard in Possum Neck, Mississippi. From celebrating the birth of a new chick to the death of an old Goose and the marriage of Crow, each vignette connects to the rituals, foibles, and truths of humankind. It’s Baby Rooster who teaches the others how to live together, his father who struts his prideful self, and his mama who takes care of her men folk. But whose voice is it booming from the heavens who tells Buzzard to be satisfied with his bald pate and to stop coveting Baby Rooster’s feathers? Onomatopoetic phrases appear throughout “steppity-step-stepping” the reader to death. More substantive free verse highlights a tale’s moral. These interruptions tend to bog down the reading, although they might make a read-aloud more fun for the listener. Berry’s black-and-white illustrations are charming, pointing up the human characteristics in these fowl. Cute, but not best of show. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2000
ISBN: 0-06-025377-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2000
Imagine the states, Kansas, California, Ohio, and all the rest, as people with toothy grins, ping-pong balls for eyes, pipe cleaner limbs, and full-blown personalities. Imagine, then, that they get together at a party and decide to switch places on the map. In this amusing spoof, Kansas wakes up one morning saying, “I’m not feeling happy at all!” and starts the whole thing. Florida goes to Minnesota, California goes to Wisconsin, Nevada and Mississippi fall in love. Then the trouble starts: Alaska, who had missed company, feels claustrophobic among other states; Kansas finds his place in the middle of the ocean to be a bit too quiet; Minnesota, in Florida’s spot, forgets to pack suntan lotion; and so on. Soon the states are rushing back to their original spots with sighs of relief. Keller, in her first book pushes a silly idea, to great lengths, and will elicit laughs from all those who thought geography was boring. The states are colorful, boastful, belligerent, and charming, in collage illustrations that are full of spontaneous asides and intriguing labels. The states appear in a final gallery, with a few statistics to square off the whole funny enterprise. (Picture book. 8-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8050-5802-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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