Happily-ever-after with a STEM feminist twist: how very timely.
Princess Dara is no damsel in distress.
In this early reader chapter book based on a Cambodian tale, “The Story of Princess Amaradevi,” the princess Dara is a Renaissance woman with talents in music, writing, painting, law, science and engineering. She meets her match in Rith, a young man who is “also very skilled at planning and drawing.” They work on a project in Dara’s father’s kingdom, and they fall in love and marry. Unfortunately, three conniving ministers in the kingdom find the couple’s surprise plans for a summer palace for the king, and while Dara is away, they falsely label them as “King Rith’s Palace.” The king is fooled by their ruse and banishes Rith. Dara is devastated when she returns and determines to clear her husband’s name. When the three ministers each ask for her hand in marriage, she sees through their pretenses and conspires with her maid, Chenda, to trick them. Drawing upon her engineering skills, she succeeds and presents evidence of their malfeasance to her father, who sends them away and reunites her with Rith. Brightly colored acrylic-and-graphite illustrations reinforce the developing plot and have a naïve quality that suits the folkloric sensibility of the story.
Happily-ever-after with a STEM feminist twist: how very timely. (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-78285-103-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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Yarlett takes poor advantage of the format, as readers see only half of the correspondence, but the premise and punny names...
A lad finds a big red dragon in his basement and wisely seeks expert advice about its care and feeding in this epistolary episode.
Young Alexander’s missives (there are no cellphones, nor parents, in sight) are mostly paraphrased rather than shown, but each response comes as a small note folded into a pocket that’s been printed and shaped like an envelope: “Douse it in water right away!” writes panic-stricken fire chief H.Y. Drant; find it a large house or castle, advises B. East of World Animal Welfare; “fatten it up,” suggests Angus Teak the butcher (“Look forward to [eating, scratched out] meeting your dragon”) with sinister relish. Boy and dragon have wonderful times together, but the ultimate realization that dragons really don’t make good pets leads the narrator to follow the written advice of best friend Hillary (“the wisest person I knew”) and set it free. The later arrival of a slightly burned picture postcard in the “post” reassures him that the dragon won’t be forgetting to keep in touch. The human figures in Yarlett’s cartoon illustrations are either white or have their heads cut off at the page top. With the exception of the pasted-on postcard from the dragon at the end, all of the correspondence is removable and thereby losable.
Yarlett takes poor advantage of the format, as readers see only half of the correspondence, but the premise and punny names add some appeal. (Novelty. 6-8)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61067-818-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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