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
What if the market was closed when you wanted to bake a pie? You could embark for Europe, learn Italian en route, and pick up some semolina wheat in Italy, an egg in France, kurundu bark for cinnamon in Sri Lanka, and an entire cow in England (butter) before coming home via Jamaica (sugar) and Vermont (apples). The expertly designed illustrations in which a dark-haired lass journeys by various means to these interesting places to get her groceries are lovely and lively, and the narrative, too, travels at a spritely pace. The journey is neither quite logical enough to be truly informative nor quite bizarre enough to be satisfyingly silly, while the rich, sweet recipe that's appended will take some adult assistance. Still, fun. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: May 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-83705-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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