A first novel (for publisher as well as author) begins with a promising scenario: In the 1880's, a fictional Italian boy helps the real Luigi Tarisio find a lost Stradivarius. When the itinerant Luigi (whose vocation is discovering these missing treasures) arrives in the village, he's quickly befriended by young Antonio—who introduces Luigi to various neighbors and helps him figure out who might have the instrument, the marvelous tone of which still lingers in a local tale. Unfortunately, the textbook style here combines with stock characters who are prone to remarks like, ``I'm a poor widow...I have nothing but a sad heart.'' There are few details to lend a sense of place or of village life: Antonio's father complains about his daydreaming on page one, but we never discover what he might have been doing instead. ``Midday isn't the time to visit someone''—but why not? The language is clichÇd and sometimes careless: what color is ``tarnished gold''? This harmless mystery does introduce some historical facts; but it's oversimplistic, and Hooper fails to realize its unusual setting. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1991
ISBN: 1-878093-79-7
Page Count: 70
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Preposterous situations and farcical sound-alike sentences will elicit groans and giggles.
Homophones in versatile parallel sentences create absurd scenarios.
The pattern is simple but endlessly funny: Two sentences, each illustrated, sound the same but are differentiated by their use of homophones. On the verso of the opening spread a cartoon restaurant scene shows a diner lifting a plate of spaghetti and meatballs to a waiter who removes a dark hair from the plate of noodles: “The hair came forth.” (Both figures have brown skin.) Opposite, the scene shows a race with a tortoise at the finish line while a hare trails the tortoise, a snake, and a snail: “The hare came fourth.” The humorous line drawings feature an array of humans, animals, and monsters and provide support and context to the sentences, however bizarre they may seem. New vocabulary is constantly introduced, as is the idea that spelling and punctuation can alter meaning. Some pairings get quite sophisticated; others are rather forced. “The barred man looted the establishment. / The bard man luted the establishment” stretches the concept, paralleling barred with bard as adjectives and looted with luted as verbs. The former is an orange-jumpsuited White prisoner in a cell; the other, a brown-skinned musician strumming a lute for a racially diverse group of dancers. Poetic license may allow for luted, though the word lute is glaringly missing from the detailed glossary.
Preposterous situations and farcical sound-alike sentences will elicit groans and giggles. (Informational picture book. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72820-659-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Miranda’s book counts the monsters gathering at a birthday party, while a simple rhyming text keeps the tally and surveys the action: “Seven starved monsters are licking the dishes./Eight blow out candles and make birthday wishes.” The counting proceeds to ten, then by tens to fifty, then gradually returns to one, which makes the monster’s mother, a purple pin-headed octopus, very happy. The book is surprisingly effective due to Powell’s artwork; the color has texture and density, as if it were poured onto the page, but the real attention-getter is the singularity of every monster attendee. They are highly individual and, therefore, eminently countable. As the numbers start crawling upward, it is both fun and a challenge to try to recognize monsters who have appeared in previous pages, or to attempt to stay focused when counting the swirling or bunched creatures. The story has glints of humor, and in combination with the illustrations is a grand addition to the counting shelf. (Picture book. 3-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201835-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
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