Originally published in Spain, this amorphous volume could certainly be used as a jumping-off point by a creative adult, but...
Imagination is an elusive concept, and this book misses the boat in its attempt to deconstruct one girl's creative process.
The nameless child tries to describe how her mind works as she explores the world of her imagination, entering it quite literally through a door and seeing legendary characters: “unicorns, fairies, elves and magicians.” Then she proceeds to use a series of similes: “My imagination is like a sea of thoughts that float and glide over each other.” “My imagination is like a land of clouds of different shapes.” Since she starts by discussing story and writing, a segue to letters and words makes sense, but this is a limited view of imagination and creativity. She includes one reference to music but none to scientific creativity or the visual arts. Light bulbs and gears appear as clichéd images inside her mind. Illustrations mix watercolor and drawing and sometimes have a diagrammatic look. The limited palette is quite sophisticated, as is some language. As the text ends, the narrator speaks about what happens after her words hold hands: “And they cross the bridge of my imagination that connects my worlds: the internal and the external.”
Originally published in Spain, this amorphous volume could certainly be used as a jumping-off point by a creative adult, but there are far better books on the topic available. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-84-15503-59-0
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Cuento de Luz
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education.
A young visionary describes his ideal school: “Perfectly planned and impeccably clean. / On a scale, 1 to 10, it’s more like 15!”
In keeping with the self-indulgently fanciful lines of If I Built a Car (2005) and If I Built a House (2012), young Jack outlines in Seussian rhyme a shiny, bright, futuristic facility in which students are swept to open-roofed classes in clear tubes, there are no tests but lots of field trips, and art, music, and science are afterthoughts next to the huge and awesome gym, playground, and lunchroom. A robot and lots of cute puppies (including one in a wheeled cart) greet students at the door, robotically made-to-order lunches range from “PB & jelly to squid, lightly seared,” and the library’s books are all animated popups rather than the “everyday regular” sorts. There are no guards to be seen in the spacious hallways—hardly any adults at all, come to that—and the sparse coed student body features light- and dark-skinned figures in roughly equal numbers, a few with Asian features, and one in a wheelchair. Aside from the lack of restrooms, it seems an idyllic environment—at least for dog-loving children who prefer sports and play over quieter pursuits.
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55291-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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