This beautifully illustrated, imaginative story demands patient, willing readers.
Grace, a teenage girl, tells Daniel, a little boy, an exciting bedtime story.
It’s an adventure that really happened to Grace (or did it?) when she “was younger than [Daniel], when every day was as bright as this pearl.” As she shows the boy a glowing pearl ring, she tells him that her older brother disappeared. She describers their close relationship, which centered on playing their hand-carved flutes together; here, an unearthly double-page spread shows an angelic boy playing a flute while a girl sadly sits on the instrument’s end. Dziubak’s talents are on display in this haunting picture. The wordy, meandering story, translated from Swedish, is less successful. When sledding, Grace “skid[s] into an icy tunnel” and emerges as a small figure in summer clothes surrounded by large insects with a conspicuously odd manner of speech. Taken captive by a crab, she must collect pearls, using a stick to wedge open the clams (not oysters). She follows the sound of Tom’s flute wafting from a cave, where he introduces her to three other child captives. (One has brown skin and black hair; all other humans present white.) Resourceful Grace has a plan. Using their wedging sticks against the crab, they escape, stop to grab five pearls, and find themselves back in their world. Grace has her brother’s praise, a wondrous story, and a beautiful ring to boot.
This beautifully illustrated, imaginative story demands patient, willing readers. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-178250-599-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Floris
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...
Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.
The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-934133-57-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Mackinac Island Press
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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