Engaging stories that will hook kids, send them looking for traditional stories, and perhaps encourage some to take up the...
A storyteller puts her own stamp on 15 traditional tales from four different continents about shape-shifters, those people who turn into animals and back again.
In her afterword, Don explains, “I’ve altered all these stories as I tell them to make them work for me and for the audience I’m telling to.” She carefully states her sources and then explains her adaptations, sometimes saying that children have given her ideas. There are occasional anachronisms. “Yuck” seems to be a favorite way to express disgust, but Don wants her readers to feel comfortable. If she loses some gravity in her tellings, she quickly gains readers’ interest. A kid understands completely the boy who becomes a buzzard in a tale from Mexico and says “Yuck!” when he finds out that he must eat dead bodies. “Mom” and “dad” are used in the final story, about a child becoming a werewolf, more original than most of the others, although “inspired” by a German tale. The black vignettes (occasionally reused) and the small drawings of a branch with a caterpillar from “The Ashkelon Witches” (a Jewish folk tale) appearing as a header and the snakes from “The Snake Prince” (from the Punjab) flanking the page numbers contribute to the book’s handsome design. Two other series entries publish simultaneously: Ghosts and Goblins: Scary Stories from Around the World and Magic and Mystery: Traditional Stories from around the World, both by Maggie Pearson and illustrated by Greenwood.
Engaging stories that will hook kids, send them looking for traditional stories, and perhaps encourage some to take up the art of oral (and written) storytelling. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5124-1321-2
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Darby Creek
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The balance between information and attractive bookmaking is always important, but atlases like the National Geographic...
Retro-looking maps with pictures of animals, transport, famous landmarks and traditional dancers fill the pages of this mediocre atlas.
The text emphasizes environmental changes and sustainability, with proportionately less information on people. Organizationally, it starts with the oceans, including the two polar areas, and then explores the landmasses. Short, factoid-heavy paragraphs on physical features, climate and weather, natural resources, environment, wildlife and transport accompany each deeply colored map, and in the appropriate regional sections, a paragraph on people and places is added. Although the disproportionately sized pictures of landmarks, natural resources, generic people and miscellany on the maps are identified ("Omani man"; "bus"), too often they are not further explicated. Occasional fold-out pages and small, inserted “Did You Know?” booklets give the illusion of interactivity. Providing comparisons on carbon footprints (“a person in the UAE [United Arab Emirates] on average emits 15 times more than a person in China”) is vital information that seems at odds with the childish maps. A separate wall map (in the same style) is included. The woeful index includes only entries for country names, followed by their capitals.
The balance between information and attractive bookmaking is always important, but atlases like the National Geographic World Atlas for Young Explorers (2007) still remain the gold standard. This struggles to meet the bronze one. (glossary, index, sources; companion app not seen) (Reference. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-84686-333-2
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
This ageless trickster tale has a nicely subversive message, but this rendition lacks the panache to carry it off.
A wooden retelling of Perrault’s classic tale, with underwhelming movable parts.
Gurney embellishes the original plotline only by furnishing the Ogre with a back story (provided in a very small pasted-in booklet) and bestowing names on the kingdom and most of the characters. Her prose stumbles (“Puss pondered over [sic] the problem of Peter’s livelihood”), and her dialogue runs to stilted lines like, “We have seen your idea of work, Peter—it is to sit around all day playing your harmonica and idling.” Illustrator Kelley does his best to add plenty of visual panache, crafting painted scenes featuring a swashbuckling ginger puss plainly akin to the scene stealer from Shrek and cleverly manipulating a Disney-esque human cast. Such movable additions as a turn-able water wheel, a pull tab that makes Puss lick his chops after devouring the ogre and even a culminating pop-up wedding tableau are, at best, routine, and they often feel like afterthoughts, enhancing neither the art nor the story.
This ageless trickster tale has a nicely subversive message, but this rendition lacks the panache to carry it off. (Pop-up fairy tale. 8-10)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7641-6485-9
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Barron's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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