Billing Thor as the Vikings’ favorite god, because he was “the biggest, strongest and bravest,” a veteran talespinner smoothly retells five of his better-known exploits, from feeding a poor family on two goats that magically reconstitute themselves in the morning to getting his stolen hammer back by impersonating the goddess Freya. He comes across as a blustery but compassionate sort here, ever ready to defend the gods against trolls and Jotun (giants)—though his own mother was a giant—and to forgive even the pranks of his Jotun foster brother Loki. In Madsen’s big, luminous digital paintings, the Jotun and dwarves—beetle-browed, bull-necked and scowling—look particularly thuggish next to the handsome, graceful residents of Asgard. As in the tales themselves, the tone is more comic than violent. Though the stories are easy to find elsewhere (Bruce Coville’s rendition of Thor’s Wedding Day (2005), illustrated by Matthew Cogswell, is particularly uproarious), all together they make an engaging gateway to the many larger collections of Norse myths, and are equally suited to reading alone or aloud. (source and reading lists, glossary, pronunciation guide) (Folktales. 9-11)
Pub Date: June 18, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-618-47301-4
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2007
Mama God, Papa God ($15.95; Apr. 26; 32 pp.; 1-56656-307-0): The creation story takes a whimsical Caribbean turn in a seamless blend of religion and folk-art set in Haiti. Tired of living in darkness, Papa God creates light, then goes on to make the world as a beautiful gift for Mama God. Together, they design a detailed world filled with brilliance, love, and humor. Highly stylized illustrations rich in primary colors show the progress of creation as animals, birds, water, fish, wind, and rain take their place in the world. This unusual rendition of the creation tale sings to a calypso beat and gives a strikingly different and exuberant interpretation of how the world began. (Picture book. 3-8)
Pub Date: April 26, 1999
ISBN: 1-56656-307-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Interlink
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
A beguiling retelling of a 19th-century Lincolnshire tale that fairly dances with an impatience to be read aloud. Mouth-filling words dot this story, the context making them easily understood while taking away none of their mystery. Bogles and other horrid things live in the cracks and cinders and sleep in the fields in the old times, and at darkling every night folk walk round their houses with lights in their hands to keep the mischancy beings away. In autumn, “they sang hush-a-bye songs in the fields, for the earth was tired” and they fear the winters when the bogles have nothing to do but make mischief. As the year turns, they wake the earth from its sleeping each spring, and welcome the green mist that brings new growth. In one family, a child pines, longing for the green mist to return with the sun. Through the long winter she grows so weak her mother must carry her to the doorsill, so she can crumble the bread and salt onto the earth to hail the spring. The green mist comes, scented with herbs and green as grass, and the child thrives, once again “running about like a sunbeam.” The green, gold, brown, and gray of the watercolors show fields and haycocks, knobby-kneed children and raw-boned elders, a counterpoint to the rich text. (Picture book. 4-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90013-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
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