A busy, imaginative, beguiling fairy tale.
In this lush, kaleidoscopic children’s fantasy, a plucky Filipino lad embarks on a magical mystery tour in search of a talisman that can save his father’s life.
Twelve-year-old Tetong rolls his eyes at the superstitious beliefs held by people in his Filipino village, but that skepticism is soon demolished by the mind-blowing adventures he experiences in this frenetic yarn. When his father contracts a mysterious ailment that baffles local healers, Tetong sets off in search of a cure and has encounters with strange and supernatural beings. He makes friends with an irascible witch and a creek monster (whom he returns to human form), rescues an injured eagle, liberates roosters from cruel bondage and frees horses from impending slaughter. His good-heartedness wins him valuable allies, an invisibility hat, a magic green orb and the power to fly, but it also incurs the wrath of a sorcerer known as the Man In Black, whom Tetong will have to fight in order to find a magic bird and lift the curse on the Land of the Unknown. Reyna tells Tetong’s story in the classic style of a fairy tale: Wondrous happenings proceed matter-of-factly; developments unfold by arbitrary incantatory rules; animals talk; and a deep moral reciprocity shapes a world in which favors are always repaid. Her prose is straightforward and brisk, her lavish imagery at times almost psychedelic (“[S]mall drops of purple light changed to orange and huge rolling eyeballs seemed to stare at him”) and her characters piquant. Along the way, she includes descriptive passages about Filipino village life, illustrated with engaging sketches. The narrative teems with so much action and spectacle that it sometimes loses the main story thread amid the whirl, but young readers will find plenty of diverting romps to hold their attention.
A busy, imaginative, beguiling fairy tale.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2012
ISBN: 13-978-1479205691
Page Count: 260
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tender bedtime tale set in a too-seldom-seen northern world.
A quiet book for putting young children to bed in a state of snowy wonder.
The magic of the north comes alive in a picture book featuring Inuit characters. In the sky at nighttime, snow falls fast. / … / In the sky at nighttime, a raven roosts atop a tall building. / … / In the sky at nighttime, a mother’s delicate song to her child arises like a gentle breeze.” With the repetition of the simple, titular refrain, the author envisions what happens in a small town at night: Young children see their breath in the cold; a hunter returns on his snowmobile; the stars dazzle in the night sky. A young mother rocks her baby to sleep with a song and puts the tot down with a trio of stuffed animals: hare, polar bear, seal. The picture book evokes a feeling of peace as the street lamps, northern lights, and moon illuminate the snow. The illustrations are noteworthy for the way they meld the old world with what it looks like to be a modern Indigenous person: A sled dog and fur-lined parkas combine easily with the frame houses, a pickup truck, power lines, and mobile-hung crib. By introducing Indigenous characters in an unremarkably familiar setting, the book reaches children who don’t always see themselves in an everyday context.
A tender bedtime tale set in a too-seldom-seen northern world. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77227-238-3
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Inhabit Media
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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