With whimsical paintings, some racial diversity, and a cat and mouse playfully adding to the visual fun, this retelling is...
The Grimm tale is updated with pastel shades and a terpsichorean spin.
Stan and Jan, white husband-and-wife shoemakers, share their passion for dancing with their village neighbors, until winter comes, keeping customers away. When they are desperate, a fanciful pair of shoes suddenly appears one morning, multicolored and gleaming with stars. Immediately, a tall, white customer, Mr. Morris, complete with jaunty top hat, striped pants, long purple overcoat, and polka-dot umbrella, arrives to buy the shoes. The next day, the couple finds “three new pairs of shoes even more magnificent than the last pair!” (This series uses emphasis, exclamation marks, and variously sized type to excess.) Mr. Mack, a round, jolly, brown-skinned man, buys all three, and he and his horse ride away sporting their new shoes. Marvelous styles appear every day, and customers keep coming. One night, Stan and Jan decide to wait for their saviors. At midnight, they spot the elves (two white and one black) wearing raggedy clothing (not naked as in the original). The couple makes new clothes and dancing shoes for the helpful elves using apple seeds, dandelion leaves, and daisy stems. The illustrations present a smiling multiracial community, realizing it in lavenders, pinks, and turquoises that make it a little hard to see the shoemakers’ short-lived distress.
With whimsical paintings, some racial diversity, and a cat and mouse playfully adding to the visual fun, this retelling is worth considering. (Picture book/fairy tale. 4-6)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-84869-081-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Loewen’s story is a simple snapshot of kindergarten graduation day, and it stays true to form, with Yoshikawa’s artwork resembling photos that might be placed in an album—and the illustrations cheer, a mixed media of saturated color, remarkable depth and joyful expression. The author comfortably captures the hesitations of making the jump from kindergarten to first grade without making a fuss about it, and she makes the prospect something worth the effort. Trepidation aside, this is a reminder of how much fun kindergarten was: your own cubbyhole, the Halloween parade, losing a tooth, “the last time we’ll ever sit criss-cross applesauce together.” But there is also the fledgling’s pleasure at shucking off the past—swabbing the desks, tossing out the stubbiest crayons, taking the pictures off the wall—and surging into the future. Then there is graduation itself: donning the mortarboards, trooping into the auditorium—“Mr. Meyer starts playing a serious song on the piano. It makes me want to cry. It makes me want to march”—which will likely have a few adult readers feeling the same. (Picture book. 4-5)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7614-5807-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
This long-running British series (the first Little Princess book was published in 1986) has been adapted for television there. In this installment, her dad (in a jacket and tie, wearing his crown) has read her a story and is about to turn off the light when the Little Princess shouts, “I WANT MY LIGHT ON!”—with her entire face subsumed into one of those scarlet, tooth-edged mouths. She’s not afraid of the dark but of ghosts. Dad checks under the bed, and General, Admiral, Doctor and Maid assure her there are no ghosts. The Little Princess’s room is a bright yellow, but readers see glimpses of the castle’s arches and stone steps past her doorway—and then there is a little ghost behind her bedpost, with a skeleton toy the shape of Little Princess’s own stuffie. Ghost and Princess scare each other, and he dashes off to his mother, who, as she stirs her pot of frog, worm and spider stew, assures him that there are no such things as little girls.... The pictures are clear, bold and exaggerated to great humorous effect. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7613-6443-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Andersen Press USA
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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