A lighthearted reminder that first impressions, like appearances, can be deceiving.
A princess proves wiser than her royal dads when it comes to figuring out what a newly arrived ogre is up to.
It’s easy to see how a new neighbor who is “hulking and hairy, / fearsome and scary” could make a bad first impression on everyone in the kingdom—or practically everyone, anyway. Despite a few unfortunate incidents during certain royal events, young Pru thinks he might just be lonely…and so neither she nor cannier readers will share the general terror when he begins buying up cupcakes by the score, a mountain of snacks, gobs of craft supplies, and lots of balloons. And indeed, when she rides up the hill on her ostrich with her three pet tarantulas in tow (Pru’s life, Fergus writes, “was practically perfect”), the ensuing party is the best in memory and the beginning of a beautiful friendship. The darker of the tan-skinned princess’s dads sports an outsize turban and a handlebar mustache; the other has skin the same color as Pru’s. Mohiuddin’s humorous cartoon illustrations depict a diverse populace more than willing, once the ice is broken, to give the grinning gray monster the benefit of the doubt. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A lighthearted reminder that first impressions, like appearances, can be deceiving. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 18, 2023
ISBN: 9781771475006
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Merryn’s role here is refreshingly active, but readers really have only the author’s word for it.
In this video game spinoff, a fisherman’s daughter builds a submarine and sets out to find her missing father.
Being a capable tool user (or so readers are told, anyway), young Merryn cobbles her sub together in jig time. Over the course of her undersea search, she bandages a wounded half-human merrow, destroys the glowing Deeplight that had lured many sailors to their dooms, finds her shipwrecked dad alive in a fortuitously placed diving bell, and is rescued from a huge, tentacled monster by the even larger mother of a baby sea serpent she had previously saved. These adventures would have been even more exciting had they actually been depicted in the illustrations—but, rare exceptions aside, Mora and Seabrook opt to focus instead on Merryn’s determined face, exotic seascapes, and “after” views rather than actual creative activity or moments of action. Back on land at last, father and daughter (both of whom are white) set about building a new boat that will, henceforth, carry them together.
Merryn’s role here is refreshingly active, but readers really have only the author’s word for it. (map) (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4549-2161-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
A heartwarming story with a bit of mystery, available in both English and Chinese.
In winter, an old man enters Cat’s Eye Hutong (alleyway or lane) with his bicycle, fitted with a rack filled with candied hawberry skewers, a Chinese treat.
He hopes to sell all so that he can buy medicine but first puts down a box of fish scraps in the snow. He calls for customers, but none appear. The charming, naïve watercolor-and–colored-pencil paintings begin to fill with feline images built into the architecture. Then a small child wearing a white medical mask (sometimes worn to prevent the spread of germs) buys a stick of hawberries, but as she walks off, the man notices a white tail peeking from her coat. Other young, masked buyers appear; all have tails, and one’s mask has slipped, exposing whiskers. Finally, a human girl buys the last stick, and when the old man asks her about the kids with tails, she informs him that only “Kitties have tails” but points up to cats on the rooftops all eating the red hawberry sticks. Careful readers will remember the fish left “as usual.” This book publishes simultaneously with an edition in Simplified Chinese, which features simplified characters and transliterated text in a small font directly above the characters. Backmatter includes a glossary keyed to intermediate-level readers, three-to-a-page thumbnails of the illustrations with English text, and note with cultural background (sadly missing in the English-only edition); further Chinese learning materials are available on the publisher’s website.
A heartwarming story with a bit of mystery, available in both English and Chinese. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-945-29519-5
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Candied Plums
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
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