An exuberant and heartfelt travelogue extraordinaire.
A very personal tour of New York takes readers eastside, westside, uptown and down.
Although there is a hint of homage to Miroslav Sasek’s classic This Is New York, Brown makes it fresh and new and gets it just right, with a little history, a little geography, some mind-boggling statistics and the familiar iconic sights. It’s not orderly in its approach, as New York is essentially an eclectic mix of people, sights, sounds, smells and tastes. Beginning with his very first view of the city and his determination to make it his home, he catalogs the things he loves about it. He zooms through the Broadway theater district, the top of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and more, including lesser-known places like the High Line and not forgetting the subway system. With pauses to address hunger pangs, Brown offers interesting tidbits about the vast variety of food available. He employs breezy, conversational language, speaking directly to his audience, telling them of the wonders and adventures that the city offers, inviting them to come and see it for themselves. The detailed illustrations and endpaper sketches are rendered in layers of watercolors and gouache that glow brightly with joy and vitality and demand to be viewed over and over, always to find new delights.
An exuberant and heartfelt travelogue extraordinaire. (Picture book. 4-10)Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-375-86454-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Absolutely wonderful in every way.
A long-forgotten chapter in New York City history is brilliantly illuminated.
In mid-19th-century New York, horses and horse-drawn vehicles were the only means of transportation, and the din created by wheels as they rumbled on the cobblestones was deafening. The congestion at intersections threatened the lives of drivers and pedestrians alike. Many solutions were bandied about, but nothing was ever done. Enter Alfred Ely Beach, an admirer of “newfangled notions.” Working in secret, he created an underground train powered by an enormous fan in a pneumatic tube. He built a tunnel lined with brick and concrete and a sumptuously decorated waiting room for passenger comfort. It brought a curious public rushing to use it and became a great though short-lived success, ending when the corrupt politician Boss Tweed used his influence to kill the whole project. Here is science, history, suspense, secrecy, and skulduggery in action. Corey’s narrative is brisk, chatty, and highly descriptive, vividly presenting all the salient facts and making the events accessible and fascinating to modern readers. The incredibly inventive multimedia illustrations match the text perfectly and add detail, dimension, and pizazz. Located on the inside of the book jacket is a step-by-step guide to the creative process behind these remarkable illustrations.
Absolutely wonderful in every way. (author’s note, bibliography, Web resources) (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-375-87071-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
Utterly compelling.
The authors of Fatty Legs (2010) distill that moving memoir of an Inuit child’s residential school experience into an even more powerful picture book.
“Brave, clever, and as unyielding” as the sharpening stone for which she’s named, Olemaun convinces her father to send her from their far-north village to the “outsiders’ school.” There, the 8-year-old receives particularly vicious treatment from one of the nuns, who cuts her hair, assigns her endless chores, locks her in a dark basement and gives her ugly red socks that make her the object of other children’s taunts. In her first-person narration, she compares the nun to the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, a story she has heard from her sister and longs to read for herself, subtly reminding readers of the power of literature to help face real life. Grimard portrays this black-cloaked nun with a scowl and a hooked nose, the image of a witch. Her paintings stretch across the gutter and sometimes fill the spreads. Varying perspectives and angles, she brings readers into this unfamiliar world. Opening with a spread showing the child’s home in a vast, frozen landscape, she proceeds to hone in on the painful school details. A final spread shows the triumphant child and her book: “[N]ow I could read.”
Utterly compelling. (Picture book/memoir. 5-9)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-55451-490-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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