A wonderfully imaginative, playful, and layered tale.
A young boy meets a mysterious painter with wondrous abilities in Lee’s novel.
Brian Jones is the son of the wealthiest man in the small village of Sandstone-by-the-Sea. His father, Moab, and mother, Melissa, and his 12 other siblings fill the house of “Goodly Home on the edge of the Sea Cliffs.” Brian becomes ill with a mysterious disease that the local doctor can’t cure. On the fourth floor of the Goodly Home, Brian’s life drains of all excitement. Desperate to cure his son, Moab seeks out an artist to fill Brian’s white room “with all the things [he] like[s] just as they are” so that he may begin to get better. When Moab finds Mervyn—an angry, muttering artist with an unusual talent for painting things realistically—he hires him to paint the walls of his son’s tower. Mervyn works for a week and produces such a lifelike display of the outside world that Brian’s family is in awe. Before long, people in the village of Sandstone-by-the-Sea become desperate for a piece of Mervyn’s magic, and when the villagers begin to turn against him, he does something quite unexpected. Lee’s marvelous imagination engagingly contrasts a portrayal of a rich family with the villagers’ simple desire for access to the same magic that the family receives. Despite the lack of variety in sentence length, Lee’s prose effectively propels the narrative to an explosive climax in which he subtly notes how unusual it is for people to chase something outside of the social norm. So’s illustrations are both vibrant and abstract, and they assist in painting a detailed portrait of both the village and the characters. Together, So and Lee create a topsy-turvy story of a genius ahead of his time.
A wonderfully imaginative, playful, and layered tale.Pub Date: April 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-578-33828-6
Page Count: 68
Publisher: Lwl Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A tale of intergenerational bonding to be shared by grandparents and grandchildren.
In talk-show host Fallon and illustrator Ordóñez’s latest picture-book collaboration, an elderly pooch waxes rhapsodic about a life well lived.
Observing Papa sitting in his chair watching TV all day, a young pup says, “I’m starting to think…you don’t do ANYTHING.” So Papa proceeds to list his accomplishments, both big and small, mundane and profound. Some are just a result of being older and physically bigger (being tall enough to reach a high shelf and strong enough to open jars); others include winning a race and performing in a band when he was younger. Eventually, the pup realizes that while Papa may have slowed down in his old age, he’s led a full life. The most satisfying thing about Papa’s life now? Watching his grandchild take center stage: “I can say lots of thoughts / but I choose to be quiet. / I’d rather you discover things and then try it.” Fallon’s straightforward text is sweetly upbeat, though it occasionally lacks flow, forcing incongruous situations together to fit the rhyme scheme (“I cook and I mow, / and I once flew a plane. // I play newspaper puzzles because it’s good for my brain”). Featuring uncluttered, colorful backgrounds, Ordóñez’s child-friendly digital art at times takes on sepia tones, evoking the sense of looking back at old photos or memories. Though the creators tread familiar ground, the love between Papa and his little one is palpable.
A tale of intergenerational bonding to be shared by grandparents and grandchildren. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9781250393975
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
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