A delicate original fairy tale that will likely appeal to young readers of imagination.
A young white girl in a snowy, onion-domed fairyland setting escapes from her shadow only to find she is not whole without it.
Hortense hates her shadow. It follows her everywhere, it does everything she does, and it grows “tall and dark / and crooked” when night falls. One day, Hortense escapes from her shadow, slamming the window on it, and her shadow is left behind. Hortense feels happy and free without the hated shadow—until the bandits show up. (These bandits are hidden within the illustrations throughout the book for sharp-eyed readers to discover.) When her shadow saves her, Hortense realizes that instead of being a hated nuisance, her shadow is an indispensable part of her, and so, in good fairy-tale fashion, all ends happily ever after. Natalia O'Hara's playful, dreamlike story is written in a lyrical cadence and relies on the poetry of the words themselves more than the reality they outline for meaning: (“she was as sad as an owl”). Lauren O’Hara (the O’Haras are sisters) contributes her own layer to the story’s fanciful mood with her soft illustrations of muted colors, filled with snowy landscapes, looming trees (for the scary bits), and storybook, folkloric buildings whose interiors show whimsical decorative details.
A delicate original fairy tale that will likely appeal to young readers of imagination. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-44079-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Another cute odd-friendship story.
Neighbors who are as different as night and day can still be friends, once they understand each other.
Kalinka, a little yellow bird with a neat cap of red feathers, lives next door to Grakkle, a big green “beast with bad habits, a bad temper, and bad hair” (an all-over pelt depicted as tight curls resembling a poodle’s coat and always referred to as “hair”). Kalinka flies through the open window of Grakkle’s house one day and declares with a chirp that the place could use some tidying up. Grakkle, who has only one word in his vocabulary—“Grakk”—uses it quite expressively to reject Kalinka’s help. But Kalinka pays him no heed; she interprets “Grakk” as “Thank you.” Grakkle grows more and more annoyed as Kalinka eats his favorite cookies, stuffs all the loose pencils into a box of spaghetti, and ties a bow in Grakkle’s unruly hair. Overcome, the green beast throws a big angry tantrum, resulting in Kalinka’s tumble into the pickle bucket where Grakkle likes to soak his feet. It’s the remorseful Grakkle to the rescue, and in short order a beautiful new friendship is born. Kalinka’s blithe cluelessness and Grakkle’s grunting ire should tickle young listeners. Paschkis’ colorful and quirky illustrations, rendered in ink and gouache, heighten the supreme silliness of her tale. Unfortunately, the depiction of Grakkle’s repeatedly denigrated hair, green though it may be, is close enough to depictions of Afro-textured hair that it may cause uncomfortable associations for some readers.
Another cute odd-friendship story. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68263-030-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Transparent moralizing.
When Mateo’s favorite elf—the titular Joy—disappears, his search involves an encounter with the Ragdoll Witch.
Mateo has often seen Joy in such places as Daddy’s beard and “the brum-brum-brum of Grandma and Grampa’s car when they came to see him.” Mateo, who has a fringe of orange hair and no apparent chin, learns from his fish that the Ragdoll Witch was “sick of that pestering pixie.” The witch, whose stylized appearance includes traditional black gown and pointy hat, plus hairy legs, is featured vertically on a double-page-spread as she casts a spell that will enable Mateo to acquire—immediately—anything he wishes for. When his wished-for tablet, roller skates, and dragon appear, Joy begins fading to nothingness. A green-haired fairy produces a counterspell so that Mateo’s wishes are only partially granted: He gets an outing with his grandparents instead of a mountain bike, a book instead of a video game, and, instead of a mansion for his favorite action figure, “his mommy and daddy helped him build a giant house out of old cartons.” Will this make Joy reappear? Perhaps something was lost in the translation from Spanish, as this is a story that even preschoolers will find annoying and sappy. Some of the collaged art is interesting, but much of it is as lackluster as the text. All characters present as white.
Transparent moralizing. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-84-946926-1-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: NubeOcho
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
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