In Root’s original pourquois tale, Lucia skis up a mountain to find the sun that has abandoned her wintry land. Accompanied by the family’s clever “milk-white cat,” she’s menaced by giant trolls, who’ve hidden the sleeping sun to prevent its light from impeding their nonstop gorging. They taunt Lucia with a game of keep-away, using the rag-wrapped ball they claim is the sun. Lucia tries fooling them into thinking she’s got the sun by igniting moss in the tinderbox she brought—but the marauders are nonplussed. Before they can eat Lucia and “the pussums,” the cat bats the orb, which, losing its wrappings, rolls “right off the edge of the mountaintop and up into the sky, growing bigger and brighter as it climbed.” Root’s smooth, folkloric narration suits the story, but allowing the cat the glory renders Lucia less heroic. GrandPré’s charming full-bleed pastel illustrations effectively use perspective and color to show small Lucia’s pluck in taking on both the harsh landscape and the trolls. In all, a sturdy, satisfying venture. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7636-2296-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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