Vibrant illustrations and a rare perspective bring life to this questing tale.
In this debut children’s picture book from siblings Keith (Madchild Running, 1999) and Chenoa Egawa, a young Native American girl sets out on a journey to discover the heart of the world.
Young Tani learns her tribe’s traditional stories while living with her grandmother in a Pacific Northwest Native American village. Her grandmother dies shortly after logging trucks arrive in their community, and Tani goes to live with other relatives. But she soon leaves to complete a mission her grandmother assigned to her: to walk to the coast and discover the heart of the world. Several talking animals help her along the way, and she’s guided by the mystical presence of the Stick Indian, a forest creature who often appeared in her grandmother’s stories. The authors enhance the narrative with eye-catching illustrations, some in black charcoal and some in full color, that give readers a clear idea of each character. Tani wears jeans and her cousin, Droopy Drawers, wears a disposable diaper, establishing the book’s present-day setting, but the text has a largely timeless feel, much like the grandmother’s legends. The book contains more text than the average picture book, but it’s likely to appeal to picture-book readers ready for a more challenging read. The biographical information identifies the authors as Native American, specifically of Lummi and S’Klallam ancestry; although Tani’s tribe is never specified, it’s clearly part of the same Pacific Northwest culture as the authors’, which adds authenticity and credibility to their portrayal. Although the lesson Tani learns about the heart of the world is a well-used theme in children’s literature, the authors’ unique voice makes the book a worthwhile addition to any child’s bookshelf.
Vibrant illustrations and a rare perspective bring life to this questing tale.Pub Date: May 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615769110
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Keith T.A. Egawa
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Roman charms with an imaginative, whimsical picture book that will entertain even the oldest pirates.
Debut author Roman pens a picture book about an imaginative boy who transforms his bed and stuffed animals into props for a marvelous pirate adventure.
Roman draws the reader in from the first page with illustrations that are cheerful and clever. The story showcases a young pirate and his menagerie: cousin Hallie, a first mate who sports a purple bandanna and ruffled pirate shirt; Linus, the loudmouthed but scaredy-cat lion with a braided goatee; Fribbet, the floppy frog with an audacious red pirate hat; and Mongo, the mast-climbing monkey who charms with an eye patch and endearingly oversized lips. Roman deftly creates an appealing visual experience with engaging, bright illustrations that will appeal to young readers. The characters are rich with animated expressions and personalities that showcase the creative and warmhearted ways the characters have fun. Well-drafted secondary characters also include the “mermaid” who appears with a plate of golden doubloons (in the form of cookies) and orders the pirate not to get crumbs on the bed when eating them. The text has a lovely intonation when read aloud, and the simple, understandable story also carries a more complex, clever subtext that will allow for educational discussions. The captain’s constant good-natured lament that “being a captain is hard work”—as he watches his crew do all the actual labor—is hilarious and a pleasant opportunity to teach children about the nuances of words and their layers of meaning. The author’s adept use of genuine pirate terms—“swab the decks,” “pump the bilges” and “me hearties”—adds flavor and authenticity to the story, too. The captain and his crew sit down with a dictionary to figure out what “shiver me timbers” means, and then they take great delight upon using the phrase correctly; children will, too.
Roman charms with an imaginative, whimsical picture book that will entertain even the oldest pirates.Pub Date: April 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-0615534657
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Michael/Okon
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Despite a few rough edges, this lesson in vowel sounds for beginning readers is infused with old-fashioned charm and solid...
In this quaint debut combination of fantasy and phonetics from a veteran educator, a teacher introduces her classroom to the Alphabet Elves from Vowel Island to help students learn to sound out words.
Miss Oliver surprises her beginning readers with a visit from the magical ALPHAS, elfin residents of Vowel Island off the Consonant Coast. These members of the Alphabet Elves family are usually invisible to the human eye, but with some extra imagining on the part of Miss Oliver’s students, the ALPHAS (Alfie, Elsie, Izzy, Ozzy and Um) pop into view. Miss Oliver informs the class that though the consonant BETAS “can only splutter, hiss, stutter, and hum, our ALPHAS are elegant. They make many lovely, different sounds, and with BETAS, they make something wonderful, WORDS!” The lessons begin with acrobatic Alfie’s short “A” sound. Elsie then explains that vowels also make “elongated, elegant sounds,” and she later points out that they make different sounds when combined with other letters and that they can be words by themselves. Elsie herself is “especially useful,” she notes, since she appears “more often than any other elf” and can change sounds of words and transform one word to another depending on where she appears. With gentle quirkiness, the author provides memory-sticking emphasis, as students join Alfie, who’s pretending to fly like an airplane while “singing his long ‘a’ sound…until he ran out of breath.” Tutu-wearing Isadora (Izzy for short) strikes a balletic pose to demonstrate just how important “I” can be, and Ozzy the “O” elf offers his short and long sounds before being goaded by Alfie to show that he “can be very negative” when placed after the “N.” The book’s small illustrations possess the colorful, awkward charm of a child’s drawings, but they—and the punctuation throughout the book’s 13 pages—could have used more polish. Misplaced or missing quotation marks, periods and commas call out for a closer proofreading.
Despite a few rough edges, this lesson in vowel sounds for beginning readers is infused with old-fashioned charm and solid phonetics.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1478303053
Page Count: 26
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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