Fortunately, not as Sesame Street-centric as billed; like the TV show, it proves entertaining in spite of its overt agenda.
In Wurth’s novel, four children from the Sesame Street generation grow up, get cynical and learn life isn’t nearly as simple as a cast of colorful Muppets once made it seem.
Like many children born after 1969, Steven’s television promised him “Sunny days sweeping the clouds away.” Instead he got perpetual thunderclouds. Bad break after bad break stalked the aspiring engineer until, as we learn in the introduction, he finally killed himself. The thesis central to Wurth’s quirky debut is that Sesame Street was somehow to blame for Steven’s failures—as well as those of his wife, Tiffany, and their contemporaries Jeremy and Katherine. Steven and Tiffany’s financial and marital instability was Big Bird’s fault for telling them “You can be whatever you want to be in this life.” Katherine and Jeremy’s boredom with life, love and sex were Jim Henson’s fault for making the future seem fresh and exciting. The idea here is the sale of false possibility has been the undoing of an entire generation. It’s a compelling notion, though Wurth’s dedication to it, and his evidence supporting it, grows scarce as the novel moves past the exposition-heavy backgrounds. Apart from this and a clever ending, the show’s place in (and influence on) the plot is slight and somewhat forced. For the most part though, that’s OK. Wurth’s intermingling plotlines often succeed in spite of his thesis, standing stronger on their own as ground-level studies on the relationship between dysfunctional childhoods and subpar adulthoods. The novel has some sleepy stretches; nevertheless, characters show enough authenticity to entertain without paying service to any overarching hook. So, as the book builds, Big Bird, Oscar and the lessons of Grover are out; jealousy, violence, and jags of wild sex are in. And, like Sesame Street, that’s ultimately what keeps you tuned in: the characters and adventures, not the lessons.
Fortunately, not as Sesame Street-centric as billed; like the TV show, it proves entertaining in spite of its overt agenda.Pub Date: July 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0578105932
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Scriptwise Partners LLC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A simple ABC book whose vibrant photographs will grab kids’ attention.
Debut authors Pi and Pi offer a debut picture-book alphabet of occupations, featuring photos of children playing dress-up.
Each of the 26 pages of this book features a photo, with illustrated details, of a child in the midst of a game of dress-up and imagination. The first shows a cheerful girl, costumed as a doctor, imagining, “What can I be today?” For “A,” a young artist paints on an easel; then, in a transition sentence, she decides to do ballet. The next page shows a ballerina who, when she gets hungry, visits a chef—and so on. Most transitions make sense, and the photos of children with occupation props, set against mostly white backgrounds, offer plenty of smiles. The simple sentences make this book easy to read aloud to its early childhood target audience. However, a few job titles may be a stretch for them to understand, such as “geologist,” “horticulturalist,” and “optician.” The jobs are varied and include artistic positions (illustrator, knitter, musician), service professions (firefighter, judge, librarian, soldier), and science jobs (engineer, X-ray technician). Surprisingly, the only sports-related position is an umpire, but a leading question at the end, about other jobs that one may discover, leaves room for young listeners to create their own.
A simple ABC book whose vibrant photographs will grab kids’ attention.Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4808-5453-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.
Diehl’s debut poetry collection showcases the arduous search for human connection and self-understanding.
In free verse poems that combine strong metaphors with prosaic passages, the poet wanders along a lifelong path of self-knowledge. She first describes it as a “pilgrimage…to accept what’s been deemed unworthy inside us,” and the trail leads to important insights. In a plainly stated yet necessary reminder, the author asserts that being human, despite the loneliness one may encounter, “is not a solitary pursuit.” Above all else, the book voices a desire for transparency in the self and in others. In “Clear Stream,” moving water illuminates objects within it, even as mystery waits at the bottom, and the water’s clarity corresponds to the speaker’s offering of his- or herself to view: “Here I am. // Come see me if you want.” Sometimes the tumble of words in these short stanzas suggests a pouring forth of injury: “It’s the show-stopping blow of loss upending a heart pain over pain till capacity for love regulates its beating.” Readers will understand a back story involving love and loss, difficulty in communication, sadness, and acceptance of children growing up. The poems gain strength from well-chosen accompanying images, including sketches and paintings by Dimenichi and colorful works by Jamaican-born painter Powell that enrich the verbal landscape. Several full-page images by each artist appear, suggesting a thematic connection or amplifying an emotion in a given poem. A richly textured, grand illustration of a tree by Dimenichi, for example, appears alongside a poem that celebrates the inspiration of such towering entities. A poem concerned with self-reflection joins a Powell painting of floating, twinned female forms. The figures seem to both depict and satisfy the speaker’s need to be seen, with their emphasis on mirror images, body doubles, and echoes of shapes. Even the windshield of a car can be a “two way mirror” behind which the driver is “invisible to life outside.” An explicitly female body is glimpsed in the sketches, and the warm, dreamlike compositions give it substance.
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.Pub Date: July 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-304-13091-4
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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