Despite razzle-dazzle illustrations, this familiar tale does not take flight.
To pounding rhyme, Princess Cinnamon Stitch escapes from the confines of deportment into weeds, fleas and tree-climbing and then she transforms her parents.
Cinnamon shucks off her fancy duds to explore the messy, muddy world, but she is brought back to the king and queen before she could play with a local boy. Her mother’s insistence on needlework gives her an idea, though, and she makes a colorful patchwork kite—and takes flight with it. The king and queen are astonished, but they immediately order kites for themselves. “They’re all happy now, and they’re less stuffy too. / With Cinnamon’s stitching, their world grew and grew. / With Cinnamon’s stitching, they took off and flew.” The rhyme is fairly dull, and the tale of a princess longing to escape the confines of grace and needlework to do what children do is not well served by the words. The pictures, done in a variety of media (pencil, felt-tip, collage, watercolor, etc.) and then scanned and arranged, are bright and rich in curlicues and stars, hearts and flowers, leaves and feathers. Often reminiscent of Eastern European folk art or batik patterns, the multiple images provide a lot to look at. Includes CD read by Imelda Staunton (not heard) and instructions for kite-making.
Despite razzle-dazzle illustrations, this familiar tale does not take flight. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-84686-803-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip.
The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface.
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
A serene, feel-good outing with a cozy, old-fashioned feel.
In this Japanese import, the first in a long-running series to appear in English, two girls ride bikes through a forest—with stops for clover-blossom tea and jam sandwiches.
It’s such a benign wood that Chirri and Chirra—depicted as a prim pair of identical twins with straight bob cuts—think nothing of sharing both a lunch spot and a nap beneath a tree with a bear and a rabbit. Moreover, at convenient spots along the way there is a forest cafe with a fox waiter plus “tables and chairs of all different size” to accommodate the diverse forest clientele, a bakery offering “bread in all different shapes and jam in all different colors,” and, just as the sun goes down, a forest hotel with similarly diverse keys and doors. That night a forest concert draws the girls and the hotel’s animal guests to their balconies to join in: “La-la-la, La-la-la. What a wonderful night in the forest!” Despite heavy doses of cute, the episode is saved from utter sappiness by the inclusive spirit of the forest stops and the delightfully unforced way that the girls offer greetings to a pair of honeybees at a tiny adjacent table in the cafe, show no anxiety at the spider dangling above their napping place, and generally accept their harmonious sylvan world as a safe and friendly place. Doi creates her illustrations with colored pencil, pastel, and crayon, crafting them to look like mid-20th-century lithographs.
A serene, feel-good outing with a cozy, old-fashioned feel. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59270-199-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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