bookshelf

WHY BEGINS WITH W

Name: WHY BEGINS WITH W
Author: Leo Schulte

A LESSON IN MURDER

by Leo Schulte & John Schulte ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 2013

Ambitious, but seriously lacking polish—and also a reason to read any sequels.

bookshelf

A light scattering of digital inserts doesn’t raise the grade of this mannered tale of high school murder, published on paper in 2009.

Framed as transcribed entries from a found journal, the open-ended tale begins with the discovery of a (supposed) murder-suicide and ends with the further death of a (purported) witness. In between, the unnamed narrator intersperses the account of the investigations with low opinions of fellow students, teachers, school lunch, Hemingway and like adolescent targets. A clutch of ambiguous incidents, inscrutable clues and unreliable-sounding witnesses all remain so at the end and shed no more light on what’s going on than do the bombastic side comments (“Intelligence is gender neutral, but stupidity is a bitch”) that appear when the antique woodcut vignettes scattered throughout are clicked. Nor are readers likely to be engaged by the narrator’s teasing refusals to reveal his or her gender (a reference to a boys’ gym class is probably an authorial mistake rather than a deliberate clue). A jumbled Blair Witch Project–style video trailer is tacked to the front end.

Ambitious, but seriously lacking polish—and also a reason to read any sequels. (Enhanced e-book mystery. 12-14)

Pub Date: April 8, 2013

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: PANGEA

Review Posted Online: May 7, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013

THE OXFORD ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF AMERICAN CHILDREN'S POEMS

bookshelf

THE OXFORD ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF AMERICAN CHILDREN'S POEMS

by Donald Hall ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 11, 1999

bookshelf

Hall (The Oxford Book of Children’s Verse in America, 1985, etc.), offers up a chestnut-flavored alternative for younger readers, matching roughly contemporary illustrations to one or two selections from each of 57 American poets. To the usual suspects—Eugene Field’s “Wynken, Blynken and Nod,” Emily Dickinson’s “I’m nobody, who are you?” and even Carl Sandburg’s “Fog”—he adds more recent works from the likes of Jack Prelutsky, Gary Soto, Sandra Cisneros, and Janet S. Wong; he also includes three poems attributed somewhat baldly to an “Anonymous Native American.” The art comprises a gallery of American illustration, from crude 18th-century woodcuts, through Jessie Willcox Smith, to Marcia Brown and the Dillons. Writing that “poetry is most poetry when it makes noise,” Hall recommends these verses for reading aloud and memorization, exhorting parents and children to appreciate how they “preserve a moment of the American past.” A safe collection, seldom veering from the canon. (index) (Poetry. 9-11)

Pub Date: Nov. 11, 1999

ISBN: 0-19-512373-5

Page Count: 93

Publisher: Oxford Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MILKMAN'S BOY
by Donald Hall & illustrated by Greg Shed

- BOOK REVIEW
OLD HOME DAY
by Donald Hall & illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully

- BOOK REVIEW
WHEN WILLARD MET BABE RUTH
by Donald Hall & illustrated by Barry Moser

bookshelf

RED-EYED TREE FROG

by Joy Cowley ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1999

bookshelf

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)