Still—a marvelous visual, if not tactile, experience.
A fanciful take on the invention of the alphabet, more a video than a full-featured app but through the roof for production values.
The setting seems right out of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and is depicted with the accomplished 3-D modeling and monochrome gray tones of Chris Van Allsburg’s pencil work. Goose-stepping hordes of small, peglike Numberlys stamp out lines of digits in a gargantuan factory amid huge shadows and gear wheels. One night, five vaguely dissatisfied workers stay behind and with mighty efforts hammer out an alphabet letter by letter that, when released the next morning, flies out into the world to introduce both words and color to the stunned masses. Readers can help them through a limited variety of touch-controlled trampoline, pinball and dexterity games. Aside from the games, there are no interactive elements in the visuals, but smoothly animated movements and scene changes aplenty keep the characters and plot tumbling along. Read, optionally, by a narrator with an exaggerated German accent, the sparse text appears on separate screens and runs to witty lines like “Now, what could the next letter…be?” Directional arrows at the bottom of each screen, plus a rotating main-menu index, allow rapid back-and-forth–ing. The art’s sophistication isn’t quite matched by the attention to technical detail, as toggling the melodramatic background music off also cuts out all of the nongame sound effects.
Still—a marvelous visual, if not tactile, experience. (iPad storybook app. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: MoonBot Studios
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
