A runaway schoolboy finds a magnificent monument to a magnificent animal in this ghost story, at once marvelous and matter-of-fact, from Morpurgo (Robin of Sherwood, 1996, etc.). The author casts himself as the ten-year-old narrator, whose attempt to run away from a miserable boarding-school existence ends in a dusty house, where a friendly old widow shows him a great lion cut into the chalk on a hillside—the butterfly lion. She tells him how it came to be there: Her Bertie, a lonely boy in South Africa, found and began to raise a white lion cub, tearfully saw it sold to a French circus owner, reclaimed it years later during the Great War, and brought it to England to live. When it died, Bertie spent the next 40 years carving its likeness on the hill. Astonishing in itself, the chalk lion becomes even moreso after a rain, when thousands of Adonis Blue butterflies gather on it. Urging him to come again, the old woman takes the boy back to school; only later does he learn that she died—as her husband did—years ago. This dreamlike story is suffused with a man's lifelong love for a rare, gentle animal friend. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-670-87461-2
Page Count: 90
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
In the best refashioning of a classic folktale since Eugene Trivizas’s Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig (1993), Sturges hilariously extends and modernizes the original. Little Red Hen can’t even begin to satisfy her sudden yen for pizza until she’s visited the hardware store (for a pan), the supermarket, and the deli (for mozzarella and a few other ingredients). Does she get any help with her many errands and hard work? “Not I.” “Not I.” “Not I.” Walrod’s stunningly inventive paper collages will draw gasps and chortles with every turn of the page; each carton, label, cold cut and anchovy is limned with crisp precision, as are the hen’s unhelpful neighbors—a pop-eyed dog, a duck in a swimsuit, and a blue hep cat with a beret and saxophone. Since Hen’s “lovely little pizza” comes out of the oven lovely, but not little, she invites her friends in, and after the feast, who will help with the dirty dishes? “I will.” “I will.” “I will.”(Picture book/folklore. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-525-45953-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A simple rhyming text and appealing illustrations will capture the very youngest of children, despite a rather innocuous title. A family of bears goes about their work: a grandmother bakes bread, a grandfather makes pottery, a father gardens, a mother sews, and so on. The narrator describes each in terms of the relationship—brother, sister, aunt, etc.—and each activity in terms of tactile experience: “Touch the plums/my sister picks/Taste the bowl/my brother licks.” The pictures are boldly colored, with an effervescent, whimsical line, as the bears cook, prepare, and make music for, it turns out, the baby’s birthday. Cats, birds, mice, and squirrels populate the indoor and outdoor scenes as wiggly grace notes, and the bears’ pointy faces and large fuzzy bodies are reassuringly cozy. (Picture book. 2-6)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-902283-90-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1999
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