Gooney Bird doesn't need much help putting herself on the map. She'll be famous for years to come.
Feisty and full of ideas (as always), Gooney Bird Greene is back.
It is now February in Mrs. Pidgeon’s second-grade classroom. There are valentines to be made and presidential birthdays to be celebrated (Gooney Bird makes sure no one forgets poor William Henry Harrison, even if he was only president for one month). But hearts and U.S. history pale in comparison to what is on every kid’s mind: school vacation. The children squirm excitedly and can’t stop chattering about surfing in Hawaii or snowboarding in Vermont. However, exactly 12 minus three of them (Mrs. Pidgeon can sneak a math problem in anywhere) do not have any exciting travel plans at all. They are glum. Luckily, Gooney Bird has an outlandishly fabulous idea—they will build a map of the entire United States outside in the snow on the playground. All of this geography talk can’t go to waste! The true-to-life voices and a multitude of personalities make it easy for readers to step into Mrs. Pidgeon’s class and feel right at home.
Gooney Bird doesn't need much help putting herself on the map. She'll be famous for years to come. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-55622-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
A visit to “any museum with portraits” would be time better spent.
Horizontally split pages encourage young appreciators of art to mix and match facial features of 10 classic portraits.
Printed on heavy stock and arranged in no apparent order, the paintings—and the one Japanese woodblock print—are all close-ups that are adjusted for size so that George Washington’s jaw will (more or less) fit the Mona Lisa’s nose beneath the brow of, say, Vincent Van Gogh or Frida Kahlo. Arcimboldo’s fruit-and-veggie Vertumnus, the Japanese actor Sawamura Sojuro III, and African-American entrepreneur Edna Powell Gayle add at least a bit of diversity to the exhibit’s subjects. Stylistically, though, there is a lack of strong visual contrast. Viewers who flip the parts back and forth are likely to be equally unexcited by Lach’s bland commentary opposite: “My cheeks are of apples, my nose is a pear” notes Vertumnus self-evidently. The gloss in Gayle’s voice is positively vapid: “I run a Chicago art gallery, and my elegant hairstyle is perfect for my job.” And, alas, so is Frida Kahlo’s: “I am an artist. My elaborate hairstyle shows my love of Mexico.” Along with further information about each work and its creator at the end, the author offers a few desperate ideas for activities, such as visiting the originals or “any museum with portraits.”
A visit to “any museum with portraits” would be time better spent. (Novelty. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7892-1274-0
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Abbeville Kids
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
An artistic showcase that also serves as a teaser for a once-popular, and not entirely dated, children’s classic.
Intricate cut-paper overlays highlight the art that accompanies this abbreviated version of the travels of a peripatetic young Swede.
Being much abridged and a bit modernized (“ ‘Weird-looking bird!’ said the fisherman, tying him up and placing him in a basket”), these 22 recast chapters from the 1906 story and its sequel, Further Adventures of Nils, read as a series of partially sketched incidents with abrupt transitions. Still, the overall plot, which features a trickster lad who is transformed into an elf and flies all over Sweden on the backs of birds, remains intact, and the narrative captures the flavor of the originals, strewn with place names—Lagerlöf was commissioned to write the works as geography lessons—and narrow escapes from danger. Latyk’s illustrations look like retro screen prints, with thin layers of blue and pink the predominant colors and small, stylized figures placed against misty backdrops. On five spreads, wordless expanses of landscape flank black stencils pierced with the outlines of finely detailed buildings, creatures, and natural details (a sixth cutting fills a large window in the cover). The relationship of these special pages to the tale is, at best, tangential, but they do add a memorable element to the presentation.
An artistic showcase that also serves as a teaser for a once-popular, and not entirely dated, children’s classic. (map) (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-91027-719-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Words & Pictures
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
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