Though Alice apps abound, this offers some audio and visual pleasures of its own.
A full version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, expressively read in a semi-British accent and decorated with illustrations that echo the elegant surrealism, and often the composition, of Tenniel’s originals.
The text appears on screens that mimic double-page spreads with patterned headers and, frequently, pale floral vignettes in the margins. It is sandwiched between an introduction composed of lightly massaged passages cut from various Web sources and notes from the artist with links to images of the Renaissance paintings from which many of his figures and landscapes are copied. Along with such mild amusements as watching Alice change sizes in the Sistine Chapel and a lobster quadrille featuring fish-headed dancers with lissome Botticelli bodies, digital enhancements include pinball-style flamingo croquet, among other touch- and tilt-activated movements. Also noteworthy are a disquieting Cheshire Cat with human teeth and hilariously literal Brueghel-style illustrations for “You Are Old, Father William.” On the other hand, Alice doesn’t visibly shrink when she drinks the potion, the “Eat Me” cake is inexplicably transformed to a wordless fortune cookie, and with a head that is clipped from a standard playing card, the Queen of Hearts looks staid rather than properly choleric.
Though Alice apps abound, this offers some audio and visual pleasures of its own. (Requires iOS 6.0 and above.) (iPad storybook app. 10-13)Pub Date: April 15, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Emmanuel Paletz Corp
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
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