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
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina...
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up.
Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields.
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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