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THE GLASSBLOWER'S CHILDREN

Name: THE GLASSBLOWER'S CHILDREN
Author: Maria Gripe
ISBN: 978-1-59017-728-0

by Maria Gripe ; illustrated by Harald Gripe ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 7, 1973

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Unlike Gripe's contemporary Hugo and Josephine books, The Glassblower's Children is a fairy tale, with remote storybook settings, mythic themes and archetypal rather than realistic characters. The first chapters, drenched in Germanic folklore, are dominated by an almost tangible sense of foreboding which peaks at the country fair when Albert the glassmaker confronts the clairvoyant Flutter Mildweather, who weaves uncanny tapestries on Gallows Hill where she lives with a one-eyed raven. Then, in keeping with Flutter's prophecy, the glassmaker's beautiful children are kidnapped and carried across the river of forgotten memories into an altogether more elegant (and perhaps more French than Teutonic) but just as menacing fairytale world, linked with Albert's only by Gripe's dazzling but artificial glass imagery. Here the rich young Lord of All Wishes Town and his unhappy Lady hire a governess for the children, and Nanny's consuming evil presence and grotesque proportions introduce a third note, that of surreal extravagance. Unfortunately the shifts in scene and focus tend to dissipate the tension and instead of mounting revelation and convergence the climactic Flutter-Nanny confrontation (they turn out to be twin sisters) simply makes the previously mysterious Flutter a more and more conventional figure. Despite the seams and weak spots, however, Gripe polishes each separate scene to fine perfection and makes each development more chilling than the last.

Pub Date: May 7, 1973

ISBN: 978-1-59017-728-0

Page Count: 176

Publisher: New York Review Books

Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1973

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GLASSBLOWER'S CHILDREN
by Maria Gripe ; illustrated by Harald Gripe

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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HOLES

by Louis Sachar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...

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Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).

Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.

Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)