Leading an artistic workshop in China, two brothers, an illustrator and a storyteller have worked with their co-artists and their translator to create books to bring Chinese folklore and arts to English-speaking countries. More sophisticated than their earlier government-sponsored didactic counterparts from the 1960s and ’70s, these books (see also The Dragon Tribe, 2009) have an original graphic look that is sometimes at odds with their easy texts. In this minor story, the brave Clay General is a small ceramic toy who avoids the hot kiln where he is made, only to turn back into a lump of formless clay when water accidentally touches him in a home where his child-owner is never seen. The mixed-media illustrations with photographic elements are striking, but at times unclear, and they do not always support the General’s blustery narration. At the end of each book, the story appears in Chinese simplified characters and in transliteration with small copies of the illustrations alongside the appropriate text. In future volumes, the Chinese should be placed on the relevant pages to facilitate bilingual use. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-60603-002-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2009
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
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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. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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The can’t-miss subject of this Step into Reading series entry—a unicorn with a magic horn who also longs for wings—trumps its text, which is dry even by easy-reader standards. A boy unicorn, whose horn has healing powers, reveals his wish to a butterfly in a castle garden, a bluebird in the forest and a snowy white swan in a pond. Falling asleep at the edge of the sea, the unicorn is visited by a winged white mare. He heals her broken wing and she flies away. After sadly invoking his wish once more, he sees his reflection: “He had big white wings!” He flies off after the mare, because he “wanted to say, ‘Thank you.’ ” Perfectly suiting this confection, Silin-Palmer’s pictures teem with the mass market–fueled iconography of what little girls are (ostensibly) made of: rainbows, flowers, twinkly stars and, of course, manes down to there. (Easy reader. 4-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2006
ISBN: 0-375-83117-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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