The missing ingredient for this conventional retelling is the characteristic foolishness of a Chelm-centered story.
A classic European fable goes to Chelm for Passover.
A stranger arrives in Chelm, the folkloric town of noodleheads, and reminds its unwelcoming residents of the Passover custom: “All who are hungry come and eat.” The visitor insists that with only a stone and a large pot, he can make a delicious matzoh ball soup. Unimpressed yet willing to follow their own brand of logic, the townspeople bring forth water as the necessary initial ingredient. The stranger, cunning yet humble, boils the stone and produces a soup fit for himself, but for his hosts, perhaps a bit more might be needed? Salt, onions, garlic, carrots, celery and chicken are offered. However, Yenta, the wise woman, points out the lack of matzoh balls. The visitor promises that his stone can make matzoh balls “so big and heavy they’ll sit in your belly like rocks,” and, horrified, the cooks in Chelm provide their own matzoh balls, “so light they can almost fly.” The visitor’s culinary feat is now ready for the town’s communal Seder. A dark, almost gloomy palette of watercolors offers a drab late-wintry rather than budding-spring setting for its wide-eyed Eastern European peasants and their rabbinic-looking bearded visitor. Unfortunately, the looniness normally associated with Chelm is as muted as Tabatabaei’s illustrations.
The missing ingredient for this conventional retelling is the characteristic foolishness of a Chelm-centered story. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8075-7620-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Poetic language, attractive illustrations and a positive message about Islam, without any didacticism: a wonderful...
Lalla, a little Mauritanian girl, gets her heart’s desire when she shows her mother that her faith is important to her.
Lalla sees her mother, her big sister, Selma, her cousin Aisha, her grandmother and all the other women in her West African town all wrapped in malafa, the colorful veils that wrap from head to toe. She wants to look beautiful and grown-up too, but each female family member tells her that wearing the malafa is more important than beauty, mystery, being a mature woman and even tradition. When Lalla figures out for herself that the malafa is central to the religious practice of Muslim women in her region, then her mother joyously wraps her in “a malafa / as blue as the Sahara sky / as blue as the ink in the Koran / as blue as a stranger’s eye.” The author notes that she changed her opinion regarding the wearing of veils for religious reasons when she lived in Mauritania and wrote this book to share the joy she observed. The collage illustrations done by an Iranian artist show the colorful cloths of “lime and mango,” the beautiful women wearing the veils in different ways and the details of the houses.
Poetic language, attractive illustrations and a positive message about Islam, without any didacticism: a wonderful combination. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87034-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The letter format has become popular as a textual structure in picture books, but this collection of missives misses the...
A little girl named Ava corresponds with Santa by mail for an entire year; their monthly letters make up the text of this mildly amusing holiday story.
The letters begin in January with Ava’s thank-you letter for her Christmas presents and continue with a pair of letters for each month through the following Christmas Eve. Ava asks Santa lots of questions in her letters, shown on the left-hand pages with scenes from Ava’s world. Santa’s patient letters answering all of Ava’s questions are shown on facing right-hand pages with accompanying views of life at the North Pole. Cheerful illustrations in a loose, comfortable style add considerable appeal to the story, but Ava’s letters don’t always seem child-written, and Santa’s letters are sometimes expository lists lacking humor. The little girl’s letters include several questions about whether Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are real and whether “presents come from our parents.” Santa always manages reasonable explanations in his responses, but the questions are ones adult readers might wish to avoid altogether in a children’s book about Santa. The conclusion is the best part of the book, with Ava’s single Christmas request, to meet Santa, satisfied on the final, wordless page.
The letter format has become popular as a textual structure in picture books, but this collection of missives misses the mark. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-86992-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
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