This outside-looking-in depiction of the power of play to bridge new relationships in Burundi serves as a universal lesson...
In this heartwarming tale, readers take a trip to the refugee camps of Tanzania to see how play can transform fear, conflict, and distrust into empathy, tolerance, and teamwork.
Expressions in Kirundi, the national language of Burundi, are sprinkled throughout the book, as readers are introduced to young Deo Rukundo and his family, fleeing the illustrated shadows of men with torches who have come to burn down their home. Deo reaches the Lukole refugee camp in northwest Tanzania, where, without his parents, he must begin to rebuild his life. The banana-leaf balls his father taught him to make provide some solace until a young rival, Remy, steals the twine he needs. Deo isolates himself until he hears the commotion of a soccer game beginning. Serendipitously, the coach places Deo and Remy on the same side. The miraculous game-winning assist goes from Deo to Remy, and a new friendship begins. Years later, when the camp closes, readers learn that Deo has returned home to become a coach solving conflict through play; they meet his inspiration, Benjamin Nzobonakira, in the backmatter, which contains further information about play-based conflict-resolution initiatives around the world. Adults looking for context to help readers understand how Burundi was thrown into chaos and its current, continued instability will have to look elsewhere.
This outside-looking-in depiction of the power of play to bridge new relationships in Burundi serves as a universal lesson that all readers can draw on. (Picture book. 7-11)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77138-331-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
Readers, wary or otherwise, could do far worse than dive into these witty, spirited renditions.
Eight animal tales highlighting the value of cleverness and the hazards of greed are retold in Williams’ signature breezy style.
In the most familiar, “The Monkey and the Crocodile,” she exonerates Crocodile (partially, at least) by endowing him with a nagging wife who demands Monkey’s heart. In other tales, a golden bangle tempts an unwary traveler into the jaws of a “Scrawny Old Tiger,” a kind “Golden Swan” ends up completely plucked after giving a feather to a needy but ungrateful woman, a canny rabbit convinces a “Foolish Lion” that a reflection at the bottom of a well is a rival lion, and, in the title story, a close if unlikely friendship that develops between a royal elephant and a stray dog survives a separation attempt. Grouped in sequential panels teeming with expressively drawn cartoon figures and framed within finely patterned borders, the illustrations glow with bright colors and brisk energy. Dropping in the occasional multisyllabic proper name for atmosphere and adding further zing with waggish side comments (“Maybe I could eat a reader instead!” mutters Crocodile’s disappointed wife), Williams relates each fable economically and keeps the tone lighthearted even in the face of fatal consequences.
Readers, wary or otherwise, could do far worse than dive into these witty, spirited renditions. (no source notes) (Graphic folktales. 8-11)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5916-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
Fans of Clementine and Ramona will cheer as new friend Penelope finds what she is looking for.
Penelope Crumb’s large nose links her to her mysterious grandfather, who, it turns out, is not Graveyard Dead.
When fourth-grade artist and would-be gumshoe Penelope Crumb realizes she has a large nose, everyone, especially her older brother Terrible (really Terrence), laughs it off. How can she not have known? Her mother states that it is Penelope's late father’s nose, and the girl is pleased to be linked to him. But when her mother throws out a comparison to her Grandpa Felix’s honker, Penelope is surprised that her grandfather is not dead. He just has not been part of the family since Penelope’s father got sick. This casual comment, and a class assignment about family stories, sends the youngest Crumb on a quest to find this mysterious Grandpa Felix. Told in a fresh, amusing first-person voice, Penelope is part adventurer (she and her best friend skip school, take trains and knock on strangers’ doors in their search), part private investigator and part therapist as she tries to piece together the missing parts of her family’s story. Her mother, a medical illustrator, is mostly in the background, studying and drawing and getting over her husband’s death, but she succumbs to Penelope’s powers by the end.
Fans of Clementine and Ramona will cheer as new friend Penelope finds what she is looking for. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-25728-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
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