Spun from a true historical episode and illustrated with a mix of simply drawn cartoons and 18th-century prints and paintings, this affectionate memoir recalls visits to the great cities of Europe in the company of an exotic Indian rhinoceros. Raised as an indoor pet, gentle Clara was sold to Dutch sea captain (and narrator) Douwe Van der Meer, who brought her back to Rotterdam, had a special carriage built for her and exhibited her from Rome to Berlin. She became a celebrity, especially in Paris where “Claramania” led to new rhino-influenced fashions, art objects, hair styles—and even a formal, life-sized portrait. “I’m glad that the world had the opportunity to see Clara,” Douwe concludes. “Just as important, I’m glad that Clara could see the world.” Like Mary Jo Collier’s King’s Giraffe, illustrated by Stéfane Poulin (1996), this is an engaging animal story that also provides a glimpse of a time when Europeans were at last awakening to the world’s size and wonder. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-89236-880-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Getty Publications
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
Spinning lively invented details around skimpy historical records, Taylor profiles the 19th-century chef credited with inventing the potato chip. Crum, thought to be of mixed Native-American and African-American ancestry, was a lover of the outdoors, who turned cooking skills learned from a French hunter into a kitchen job at an upscale resort in New York state. As the story goes, he fried up the first batch of chips in a fit of pique after a diner complained that his French fries were cut too thickly. Morrison’s schoolroom, kitchen and restaurant scenes seem a little more integrated than would have been likely in the 1850s, but his sinuous figures slide through them with exaggerated elegance, adding a theatrical energy as delicious as the snack food they celebrate. The author leaves Crum presiding over a restaurant (also integrated) of his own, closes with a note separating fact from fiction and also lists her sources. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-58430-255-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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