by Keri Smith & illustrated by Keri Smith developed by CitrusSuite ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 19, 2011
An app to energize the creative juices.
Essentially an interactive black-and-white coloring book filled with amusing tools to guide users in their pursuit to locate their inner artists.
"To create is to destroy," is the tagline for this text, which opens with basic instructions that encourage users to freely express themselves through a series of drawing exercises that are wide open to interpretation. For example, users are instructed to “scribble wildly, violently, with reckless abandon” or import pictures from their iPad for creative defacing. Each page features an array of tools at the bottom; these range from a simple pencil to a fingerpaint tool, which enables users to add color and special touches to each page. iPad functionality is well leveraged, though users will need to fight the urge to turn pages with a finger swipe, which only frustratingly draws lines across their drawing. Instead a patient finger-tap on the page’s bottom corners enables users to easily navigate. Users can save, e-mail or even utilize their Facebook or Flickr accounts to share their masterpieces. Due to some edgy page instructions ("Write as many four-letter words as you can"), this text is probably best suited for teens and adults.
An app to energize the creative juices. (iPad interactive sketchbook. 13 & up)Pub Date: July 19, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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by Sarah O’Leary Burningham and illustrated by Keri Smith
by Joy Cowley ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1999
Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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by Joy Cowley ; illustrated by Giselle Clarkson
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by Joy Cowley ; illustrated by Kimberly Andrews
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by Hye-Eun Shin ; illustrated by Su-Bi Jeong ; edited by Joy Cowley
by Ben Mikaelsen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2001
Troubled teen meets totemic catalyst in Mikaelsen’s (Petey, 1998, etc.) earnest tribute to Native American spirituality. Fifteen-year-old Cole is cocky, embittered, and eaten up by anger at his abusive parents. After repeated skirmishes with the law, he finally faces jail time when he viciously beats a classmate. Cole’s parole officer offers him an alternative—Circle Justice, an innovative justice program based on Native traditions. Sentenced to a year on an uninhabited Arctic island under the supervision of Edwin, a Tlingit elder, Cole provokes an attack from a titanic white “Spirit Bear” while attempting escape. Although permanently crippled by the near-death experience, he is somehow allowed yet another stint on the island. Through Edwin’s patient tutoring, Cole gradually masters his rage, but realizes that he needs to help his former victims to complete his own healing. Mikaelsen paints a realistic portrait of an unlikable young punk, and if Cole’s turnaround is dramatic, it is also convincingly painful and slow. Alas, the rest of the characters are cardboard caricatures: the brutal, drunk father, the compassionate, perceptive parole officer, and the stoic and cryptic Native mentor. Much of the plot stretches credulity, from Cole’s survival to his repeated chances at rehabilitation to his victim being permitted to share his exile. Nonetheless, teens drawn by the brutality of Cole’s adventures, and piqued by Mikaelsen’s rather muscular mysticism, might absorb valuable lessons on anger management and personal responsibility. As melodramatic and well-meaning as the teens it targets. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-380-97744-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
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