An attractive blend of fairy-tale elements with self-esteem encouragement.
Told in rhyming verse, this illustrated book for kids ages 1 to 7 tells the tale of a princess with magical hair who is cursed by an unhappy troll.
A wise king and beautiful queen have a daughter they name Princess Marie Antoinette. She’s a perfect sweetheart with one noticeable difference from other babies: “The princess’s hair was magic— / the real fairy-tale stuff.” It changes color throughout the day, and though the colors are pretty, the princess’s parents are worried. A doctor prescribes “cough syrup and leeches” and warns that if Marie’s hair is cut, “she might stop being herself.” The baby’s fairy godmother arrives to reassure them that “the princess’s hair is a different affair / that comes from the magic realm.” To protect his daughter, the king declares her hair a national treasure, never to be cut. As Marie grows up, her hair grows longer and longer, heavier and heavier, until she needs help carrying it from “Six maids, five servants, / a kitchen helper, butler, and caddie, / the teacher and his silly pet, / a young page, and poor choir lady.” When a talented new court hairstylist arrives, the princess gains more freedom to move about and goes to school, where her magical hair amuses other students by changing color and dispensing butterflies and treats. Marie’s hair is cursed by a bitter, gloomy troll with a grudge, but her kindness finds a way to reach him. Mammonek (Escape From Cat City, 2018) tells a fanciful story bolstered by some serious undercurrents. Readers will likely enjoy the fun of all the ways Marie’s hair behaves and misbehaves and the various attempts to contain it. At the same time, the book includes messages about good self-care and the necessity of living in the real world, not in dreams. The rhyming verse usually works well, although the scansion can be off. Mammonek’s illustrations are a charming collage of photos and digital artwork in confectionary colors set against backdrops of swirls, butterflies, and other images.
An attractive blend of fairy-tale elements with self-esteem encouragement.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5255-4907-6
Page Count: 136
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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