Amusing, well-crafted rhyme and meter make this a bouncy, fun take on a familiar story.
The famous fairy tale gets a fresh outing in verse in this illustrated children’s book for young readers.
In The Golden Ball (2011), Sinclair offered a retelling of the Brothers Grimm’s story “The Frog Prince,” in rhyming, iambic-tetrameter couplets. Here, the author again retools a traditional tale, this time using rhyming anapestic tetrameter, which has the da-da-DUM rise-and-fall rhythm of a waltz. In Sinclair’s version, the first pig builds a straw shack on the beach; the second, a log cabin in the woods; and the third, a brick house on top of a hill. In a kindly twist on the original, however, the pigs escape rather than being eaten, and the wolf runs away instead of being boiled alive. The flat illustrations are sometimes overly geometrical, like construction-paper cutouts. However, they still add color and charm to the overall story, and the pigs are especially cute. Sinclair’s choice of meter scans well—with no thrown-in words just to make the pattern come out right—and it works perfectly with the story’s familiar refrain, which is nicely elaborated: “ ‘Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!’ said the terrible wolf with a terrible frown.” Passages like these beg to be read aloud, and the author even appends a guide to doing so for parents, which explains the poetic form and includes a link to Sinclair’s website and her own out-loud reading. The story also very much lends itself to parents and children adding their own wolfy snarls, piggy squeals and other sound effects. Some vocabulary may be challenging for young readers, but not overly so: “In no time I’ll dine on all three of you most uncooperative swine!”
Amusing, well-crafted rhyme and meter make this a bouncy, fun take on a familiar story.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1937186777
Page Count: 46
Publisher: Chthonicity Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
