A stellar biography, as creepy and fun as its subject.
The story of Edward Gorey and his creepy “brand of silliness.”
“In 1925, a boy was born / in Chicago / who loved words / and pictures, too. / A brilliant boy, / An only boy.” That boy was Edward Gorey, “And oh, did he read! / He gobbled up adventures / and mysteries. / Comics and poetry. / The entire works / of French novelist / Victor Hugo, / for goodness’ sake.” The strange combination of whimsy and gruesomeness he found when reading Alice in Wonderland and Dracula one after the other when he was young is what he became famous for in his own books. Mortensen’s poetic text with spare rhythmic lines perfectly complements Bristol’s illustrations, which echo Gorey’s stylistically but bring color to the tale of an artist known for his “seas of black sketchy lines” rendered in pen and ink. Together, the text and illustrations brilliantly evoke the world of Edward Gorey’s books, providing young readers with just enough to know what Gorey was all about, even plaiting in key lines from The Gashlycrumb Tinies to prime the pump. A thorough author’s note fleshes out Gorey’s life, ending with a note about how his “sweet and sinister” style is seen nowadays in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.
A stellar biography, as creepy and fun as its subject. (sources) (Picture book/biography. 5-9)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-03368-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
Good fun wrapped in a cracking piece of characterization and history.
A dramatic telling of Lindbergh’s flight from New York City to Paris, France.
Houran conveys readers to a time when flying was still a daredevil activity and aces such as René Fonck were international celebrities. Flying contests were common in the 1920s, and as the planes got better, so did the prizes. The Orteig Prize, named after a New York City hotelier who set the challenge, would pay $25,000 to the first flyer to make a nonstop journey from New York City to Paris. Lindbergh was a stuntman and a barnstormer before he decided to take a shot at the challenge. One of the beauties of Houran’s reconstruction of the event is that it brings Lindbergh’s feat into focus: He was not the first to fly across the Atlantic; he did not fly on a wing and a prayer but planned extensively; a number of other, more famous flyers were in the race, including Fonck and Richard E. Byrd, who had recently flown to the North Pole. She also tips her hat to Lindbergh’s tactical wizardry and keeps the tale not just at a high pitch (“He buckled his safety belt. He pulled on his flying helmet. He fit his goggles over his eyes”), but in a lather: “LINDBERGH! the crowd cried....The crowd lifted him above their heads. They bounced him along like a beach ball!”
Good fun wrapped in a cracking piece of characterization and history. (Nonfiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-38284-7
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
A fascinating historical character is presented in terms easy for young children to appreciate, and requests to experiment...
One of America’s most famous 20th-century immigrants, Joyce Chen, gained notoriety the hard way.
Brought up in pre-revolutionary China, Chen left Shanghai with her husband and two children in 1949 to immigrate to the U.S., where she settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lively cartoonish pastel-and-crayon illustrations and rhyming couplets show how young Jia (later renamed Joyce) learned to cook with a man the text simply calls Cook, possibly a family servant, mastering the traditional art of making dumplings, noodles, and sweet rice balls. At the dragon boat festival, she proudly presents her father with her own creation, zongzi rice packages tightly tied “with five bright strings.” Once in the U.S., Joyce and her children face the challenge of life in America: “New words to learn. Strange food to try.” Chen becomes a mentor to other Chinese immigrants and is soon inspired to open a restaurant. The restaurant is immediately popular, but her dumplings aren’t. She overcomes the perception of Chinese food as “gluey stew” by rebranding her dumplings as “Peking Ravioli.” A cookbook and a TV show soon follow, and she has successfully introduced authentic Chinese cuisine to the East Coast. A timeline, glossary, bibliography, and dumpling recipes are included.
A fascinating historical character is presented in terms easy for young children to appreciate, and requests to experiment with dumpling dough will certainly ensue. (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6707-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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