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FREDERICK'S FABLES

A TREASURY OF 16 FAVORITE LEO LIONNI STORIES

A splendid collection of some of Lionni's best-known and best-loved works. Lionni's stories are simple and elegant; his pictures are nothing short of stunning. In all, there are 13 tales, featuring such favorites as "Frederick," "Fish Is Fish," "Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse," "Cornelius," and "The Alphabet Tree.' Their greatest strength lies in their appeal to a child's imagination, which is expounded upon in Bruno Bettelheim's enlightening introduction. Splashy colors, inventive collages, whimsy, and a sense of wonder are all here in abundance. Not to be missed.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1985

ISBN: 0679888268

Page Count: 152

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1985

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STINK AND THE MIDNIGHT ZOMBIE WALK

From the Stink series

This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...

An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.

This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.

Pub Date: March 13, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012

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CINDERELLA

This companion piece to the other fairy tales Marcia Brown has interpreted (see Puss In Boots, 1952, p. 548 and others) has the smoothness of a good translation and a unique charm to her feathery light pictures. The pictures have been done in sunset colors and the spreads on each page as they illustrate the story have the cumulative effect of soft cloud banks. Gentle.

Pub Date: June 15, 1954

ISBN: 0684126761

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1954

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