An earnest tale about the power of story.
During a time of oppressive fear, a librarian comforts her community.
The book’s first spread shows a child celebrating a birthday with loved ones in an apartment in upper panels on verso; in the lower panels and across the gutter readers see the celebration ending in destruction when soldiers bomb the library across the street. The people now live in fear where “crumbling buildings…look like ghosts,” tanks roll by, soldiers stomp, food and water are rationed, and everything—from the streets to townspeople’s moods—seems “frozen” and grim. But sitting on a bench in the apartment square and reading aloud is the intrepid town librarian, the illustrations depicting her words literally flowing through the town. Though the adults fear the soldiers’ responses (“Foolish woman,” Papa mutters), the children gradually step forth to listen, because the librarian helps them remember “what life was like before.” A closing note about the “senseless violence of war” states that this tale was inspired by the cellist who serenaded Sarajevo after the bombing of a bakery and by the destruction of libraries in Baghdad in the 13th century. The book’s palette is primarily a slate gray, save for pops of color in the child’s bright mustard sweater and the librarian’s flowing rose-colored scarf; the palette brightens when the librarian’s words stir the imaginations of the children. Though most townsfolk are pale-skinned, the librarian is a woman of color. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9.5-by-22.2-inch double-page spreads viewed at 95% of actual size.)
An earnest tale about the power of story. (Picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-57687-945-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: POW!
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Celebrated collaborators deliver another thoughtful delight, revealing how “making marks” links us across time and space.
The light-skinned, redheaded narrator journeys alone as flight attendants supply snacks to diverse, interspecies passengers. The kid muses, “Sometimes they ask me, ‘Why are you always going to the farthest planet?’ ”The response comes after the traveler hurtles through the solar system, lands, and levitates up to the platform where a welcoming grandmother waits: “Because it’s worth it / to cross one universe / to explore another.” Indeed, child and grandmother enter an egg-shaped, clear-domed orb and fly over a teeming savanna and a towering waterfall before disembarking, donning headlamps, and entering a cave. Inside, the pair marvel at a human handprint and ancient paintings of animals including horses, bison, and horned rhinoceroses. Yockteng’s skilled, vigorously shaded pictures suggest references to images found in Lascaux and Chauvet Cave in France. As the holiday winds down, grandmother gives the protagonist some colored pencils that had belonged to grandfather generations back. (She appears to chuckle over a nude portrait of her younger self.) The pencils “were good for making marks on paper. She gave me that too.” The child draws during the return trip, documenting the visit and sights along the journey home. “Because what I could see was infinity.” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9.8-by-19.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 85% of actual size.)
Celebrated collaborators deliver another thoughtful delight, revealing how “making marks” links us across time and space. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77306-172-6
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
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