From the pair behind Singing America (1995), a gathering of a century's worth of stories that defy well-known European fairy tale conventions. In an impassioned afterword, Philip writes, ``One of the defining themes of the American fairy tale is this sense that ordinary life is something the fairy tale hero must learn to value and enjoy, rather than something from which he must escape.'' He includes works by writers such as L. Frank Baum, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott, as well as lesser-knowns (Ruth Plumly Thompson and the anonymous M.S.B., among them), who penetrated the heart of American culture by creating characters who relied on inner strength and discovery rather than other-worldly magic. Glass slippers, castles, and class differences aside, Washington Irving, Howard Pyle, and Carl Sandburg remythologized the traditional stories by asserting that the challenge and bounty of America provided more than enough setting and inspiration. Whether readers recall these stories from English classes or discover them anew, they will see in the texts the promise and potential of an untarnished America. McCurdy's precise black-and- white woodcuts perfectly capture the idiomatic spirit of stories from Kansas to Kalamazoo to Rootabaga Country, and help Philip make the case for the genre that other collections have danced around without naming, the American fairy tale. With a preface by Alison Lurie. (Fiction. 10+)
Pub Date: Nov. 2, 1996
ISBN: 0-7868-0207-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Karr (The Cave, 1994, etc.) chooses the silent film studios during WW I as a backdrop for twin adolescent film stars Fitzhugh and Nelly Dalton's discovery of a ring of German sympathizers. Although their father's suspicious death in the explosion of a munitions dump has forced the twins and their mother to move out of Manhattan, things are looking up for the scrappy family. Fitzhugh and Nelly will star in a new film serial, In the Kaiser's Clutch, written and sold to the studio by their mother. The twins eventually uncover their leading man as the brains behind a secret German bomb factory. By juxtaposing plot summaries of each serial installment at the opening of every chapter and then describing all the hard work that goes into the segments, Karr accurately recreates the early film industry, and those who can give themselves up wholeheartedly to some of the campier aspects of this will have a ball. The plot is stuffed with cornball jokes, wooden dialogue, and clichÇd happy family scenes; the German characters are reduced to thick-accented, shifty-eyed, bravado-spouting villains, and the novel ultimately becomes as jingoistic as the fictional serial at its core. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 25, 1995
ISBN: 0-374-33638-5
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
The moral of this surreal episode would run something like this: never patronize a fast-food restaurant built where giant mutant bugs can crawl into the meat grinder. Young Roscoe learns this disgusting lesson almost too late when, after six months of nightly Gussy’s “Jungle Drum” burgers, he suddenly discovers that he’s beginning to resemble a praying mantis. Luckily, and despite the best efforts of Gussy’s CEO and cohorts to hush the whole thing up, Roscoe’s genius best friend Kinshasa Rosa Parks Boomer winkles out the cause. Also luckily, once Roscoe modifies his diet, the changes reverse. Elliott (Cool Crazy Crickets, 2000, etc.) is far from the first to take on a “boy-into-bug” premise, and though he introduces a memorably quirky cast, he doesn’t give it much to do besides solve the mystery of why this is happening to Roscoe and others. The high gross-out factor will draw some readers, but they’ll only find characters in search of a story. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1173-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
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