Sweet illustrations and an updated ending to an old fable allow the moral to come through without the conflicts of earlier...
On a very hot day, an elephant wanders into a barn and has a nap. Excited to finally see an elephant up close, the farmer calls in his family, who call in neighbors to see the magnificent animal.
Six blind mice are roused from sleep by an unfamiliar scent, and they follow it until they catch scent of a cat. They hide, listening to the gathered humans marvel about this “elephant,” and when the people leave, they follow the scent again. As the mice each find a different part of the elephant, they all describe what they’ve felt as if it were the whole elephant. By now, the elephant is awake and explains that they’re all “a little bit right,” but they’ve each described parts of a whole elephant. It drifts off to sleep, and the mice tiptoe back home, squeaking about what they’ve learned. In a note, Daly explains that her book is based on the 19th-century poem by John Godfrey Saxe, itself based on an ancient Indian fable told by Buddhists, Jains, and others (and retold in many picture books before this), but Daly has added an ending so the mice learn the whole truth. Daly’s soft acrylic illustrations use golden colors for what look to be the savannas of southern Africa, and in the one scene with people, they’re depicted as black, with colorful, modern clothing. Each cute mouse is a different color, with small black eyes, and the elephant wears a serene, benevolent expression.
Sweet illustrations and an updated ending to an old fable allow the moral to come through without the conflicts of earlier versions. Lovely. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-91095-942-8
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Otter-Barry
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
A quiet story of sharing with no strings attached.
A little girl in a town of white snow and soot-blackened chimneys opens a small box and discovers a never-ending gift of colorful yarn.
Annabelle knits herself a sweater, and with the leftover yarn, she knits one for her dog, and with the yarn left over from that, she knits one for a neighbor and for her classmates and for her teacher and for her family and for the birdhouse and for the buildings in town. All and everything are warm, cozy and colorful until a clotheshorse of an archduke arrives. Annabelle refuses his monetary offers, whereupon the box is stolen. The greedy archduke gets his just deserts when he opens the box to find it empty. It wends its way back to Annabelle, who ends up happily sitting in a knit-covered tree. Klassen, who worked on the film Coraline, uses inks, gouache and colorized scans of a sweater to create a stylized, linear design of dark geometric shapes against a white background. The stitches of the sweaters add a subdued rainbow. Barnett entertained middle-grade readers with his Brixton Brothers detective series. Here, he maintains a folkloric narrative that results in a traditional story arc complete with repetition, drama and a satisfying conclusion.
A quiet story of sharing with no strings attached. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-195338-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A culturally intricate slice of a lupine courier’s life.
Little Lobo and his dog, Bernabé, journey through a Mexican mercado delivering diverse goods to a variety of booths.
With the aid of red words splattered throughout the spreads as labels, Raúl the Third gives an introduction to Spanish vocabulary as Little Lobo, an anthropomorphic wolf, leaves his house, fills his cart with objects from his warehouse, and delivers them to the market’s vendors. The journey also serves as a crash course in Mexican culture, as the images are packed with intertextual details such as food, traditional games, and characters, including Cantinflas, Frida Khalo, and Juan Gabriel. Readers acquainted with Raúl the Third’s characters from his Lowriders series with author Cathy Camper will appreciate cameos from familiar characters. As he makes his rounds, Little Lobo also collects different artifacts that people offer in exchange for his deliveries of shoe polish, clothespins, wood, tissue paper, paintbrushes, and a pair of golden laces. Although Raúl the Third departs from the ball-pen illustrations that he is known for, his depiction of creatures and critters peppering the borderland where his stories are set remains in his trademark style. The softer hues in the illustrations (chosen by colorist Bay) keep the busy compositions friendly, and the halftone patterns filling the illustrations create foregrounds and backgrounds reminiscent of Roy Lichtenstein’s pointillism.
A culturally intricate slice of a lupine courier’s life. (glossary) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-55726-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
