As pithy and clever as Ogden Nash at his best, Ashman profiles 13 magical creatures from as many parts of the world. Not all are big, or even malign; the ant-sized Abatwa of southern Africa, for instance, are not so much dangerous as in danger from the shoes of heedless passersby. Still, the canny visitor will want to watch out for the likes of India’s 20-armed Ravana, the Inuits’ man-eating Adlet, and, of course, the Loch Ness Monster. Small links the creatures into a tour, sending two children and an attentive basset hound around the world in a balloon. Gifted caricaturist that he is, he renders the Sirens as a tightly-coiffed girl group, the easily irritated Russian Domovik sprite as a diminutive Stalin, and even slips in a self-portrait as a tourist about to have an unfortunate run-in with a troll. There’s no Yeti in the portrait gallery, but its North American counterpart, Sasquatch, takes a star turn as a diaphanous figure rearing up to snatch the clothes from passing skiers. As both a surefire read-aloud and a heads-up for prospective young travelers, this can’t be beat. (Poetry. 7-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-82640-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Here’s hoping this will inspire many children to joyfully engage in writing.
Both technique and imaginative impulse can be found in this useful selection of poems about the literary art.
Starting with the essentials of the English language, the letters of “Our Alphabet,” the collection moves through 21 other poems of different types, meters, and rhyme schemes. This anthology has clear classroom applications, but it will also be enjoyed by individual readers who can pore carefully over playful illustrations filled with diverse children, butterflies, flowers, books, and pieces of writing. Tackling various parts of the writing process, from “How To Begin” through “Revision Is” to “Final Edit,” the poems also touch on some reasons for writing, like “Thank You Notes” and “Writing About Reading.” Some of the poems are funny, as in the quirky, four-line “If I Were an Octopus”: “I’d grab eight pencils. / All identical. / I’d fill eight notebooks. / One per tentacle.” An amusing undersea scene dominated by a smiling, orangy octopus fills this double-page spread. Some of the poems are more focused (and less lyrical) than others, such as “Final Edit” with its ending stanzas: “I check once more to guarantee / all is flawless as can be. / Careless errors will discredit / my hard work. / That’s why I edit. / But I don’t like it. / There I said it.” At least the poet tries for a little humor in those final lines.
Here’s hoping this will inspire many children to joyfully engage in writing. (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68437-362-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
A luminous call to think about what is and to envision what might be.
In U.S. Poet Laureate Limón’s debut picture book, soaring images and lyrics invite contemplation of life’s wonders—on Earth and perhaps, tantalizingly, elsewhere.
“O second moon,” writes Limón, “we, too, are made / of water, // of vast and beckoning seas.” In visual responses to a poem that will be carried by NASA’s Europa Clipper, a probe scheduled for launch in October 2024 and designed to check Jupiter’s ice-covered ocean moon for possible signs of life, Sís offers flowing glimpses of earthly birds and whales, of heavenly bodies lit with benevolent smiles, and a small light-skinned space traveler flying between worlds in a vessel held aloft by a giant book. Following the undulations of the poet’s cadence, falling raindrops give way to shimmering splashes, then to a climactic fiery vision reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night before finishing with mirrored human figures made of stars. Visual images evocative of the tree of life presage what Límon writes in her afterword: that her poem is as much about “our own precious planet” as it is about what may lie in wait for us to discover on others. “We, too, are made of wonders, of great / and ordinary loves, // of small invisible worlds, // of a need to call out through the dark.”
A luminous call to think about what is and to envision what might be. (Picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781324054009
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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