A lightweight quest with a climactic surprise.
A treasure map doesn’t specify all the hazards on the way to a pirate’s hoard.
Modeled on “The House that Jack Built,” the cumulative narrative takes a young buccaneer and his eyepatch-wearing dog over diverse terrains (“This is the swamp where bullfrogs sing / past the forest where monkeys swing / over the mountains snowy and cold / on the island of spice and gold”) to where Pirate Frank’s treasure lies. Unfortunately, when the lad arrives at the designated spot, he’s shocked to discover that the treasure is guarded by Pirate (Sally) Frank herself (“She’s not on the map!”). Back over the island to his ship she chases him as the rhyme unreels. Tuya depicts both young freebooters as white children in typical pirate garb (with, for Sally, the addition of a ruffled tutu) and places them in pleasant landscapes replete with, as occasion demands, monkeys, frogs, or flowers. As the lad looks like a nebbish and his nemesis, who sports orange Pippi Longstocking–style braids, seems only slightly fiercer, the contretemps has a playful air.
A lightweight quest with a climactic surprise. (map) (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9644-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
For fans of Evert and Breiehagen’s Wish Book series.
Anja and her dog, Birki, do their best to get to a Christmas party in a frozen Nordic landscape.
Anja wishes she had a dog sled to harness Birki to in order to get to the party. The next morning, her cousin Erik appears with his dog sled and an offer to take her there. Lost in a blizzard, they encounter talking wolves who take them to a tent where they can spend the night. A baby polar bear named Tiny appears, separated from his mother. The following day takes them all on an adventure through glaciers and fjords, past an ice castle, and finally to Tiny’s mother and to the party. This digitally produced book is illustrated with photographs that capture the Nordic setting. Unfortunately, the overall effect is weirdly flat, with elements awkwardly set together in images that lack depth. A polar bear perches awkwardly on top of oddly scaled pack ice; Anja and Erik spend a night in the ice castle in niches chiseled into the wall, but they seem oddly disconnected from it. The book has an old-fashioned, European feel; the white, blond children’s red caps and traditional clothing stand out against the dim, bluish winter light. But the wooden, overlong text does little to cultivate the magical fantasy feeling that it’s aiming for.
For fans of Evert and Breiehagen’s Wish Book series. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6566-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
A chuckle-inducing, entirely worthy stand-alone follow-up to the terrific The Princess in Black (2014).
Princess Magnolia’s perfect birthday party’s threatened by constant monster alarms, summoning her secret identity again and again.
Prim, proper Princess Magnolia is all decked out in her pink finery, awaiting the arrival of a dozen ethnically diverse fellow-princess party guests for her birthday when her monster-alarm ring goes off. She changes attire and personas, becoming the heroic Princess in Black. Working swiftly, she saves a goat from a hungry monster and gets back to her palace in time to welcome her guests. But just when she thinks she’s in the clear and ready to open her presents, off goes her monster-alarm ring again! This pattern—Magnolia is just about to open presents when her alarm goes off, she comes up with a distraction for the princesses, defeats a monster, and returns just in time—continues through the book. It’s enhanced by visual gags, such as Magnolia’s increasingly flustered appearance, and hilarious depictions of the various ways monsters try to eat goats, from between giant pieces of bread to in a giant ice cream cone. A side character, the fittingly named Princess Sneezewort, frequently comes close to discovering Magnolia’s secret. In the end, Magnolia can’t take the constant interruptions anymore, yelling at a monster that it’s her birthday—the monster, abashed, ends up helping her in one last distraction for the other princesses.
A chuckle-inducing, entirely worthy stand-alone follow-up to the terrific The Princess in Black (2014). (Fantasy. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6511-1
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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