A brief but amusing escapade into underwear history.
The only thing funnier than underwear? Prehistoric underwear!!
(Bare) necessity may be the mother of invention, but that doesn’t guarantee that one gets it right the first time. It’s the Stone Age, and after chilly cave-dweller Pod informs his father that “I really do need something to keep my bottom warm,” what follows is a series of missteps on the road to success. Naturally, Pod’s father’s first suggestion is that he use stone to make himself some undies. When that leads to a near drowning, the undaunted Pod tries wood, shells, spider webs, mud, and feathers before a woolly mammoth offers up the finest solution. Plenty of visual gags abound in the cartoonish art during Pod’s misadventures, with a highly amused mammoth in the background mirroring young readers’ inevitable delight. But it is Pod’s persistence to engage in trial and error, even in the face of multiple failures, that turns this book from mere Stone Age silliness into a lesson of tackling a problem from multiple angles. Pod and his family are light-skinned, and he has a multiracial group of friends.
A brief but amusing escapade into underwear history. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-84886-311-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Maverick Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A warm story about the love of a family and the jubilation of freedom; it commemorates the 150th anniversary of the...
During the Civil War, an enslaved girl awaits her father’s homecoming and emancipation.
Hope’s father gives her a conch shell the Christmas Eve that he runs away to fight for the Union Army; he tells her that the sound she hears is “the sound of freedom.” Through the following months, as news of the war filters through the cotton fields and the slave quarters, Hope finds strength and courage listening to her shell. Then the best news of all is whispered from ear to ear: President Abraham Lincoln is issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. Nothing much changes on the plantation, though, until finally Papa arrives with other “colored soldiers” and takes his family into his arms and away from slavery. Lyons gives Hope a strong and very sympathetic voice, while Tate uses colored pencils and gouache in a folk-art style to imbue the characters with dignity. The stark fact that Hope, a child, is sent to work in the cotton fields is stated in a matter-of-fact tone, though the illustrations are softened through a muted palette that helps manage the horror.
A warm story about the love of a family and the jubilation of freedom; it commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-16001-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
The ultimate home-away-home story, beautifully rendered.
In this true story, an indigenous boy from Tierra del Fuego is transported to London in the early 1800s, where he encounters a vastly different world.
Living on a “faraway island” a boy named Orundellico climbs the tallest trees, views the stars, listens to the ocean and wonders what’s “on the other side.” Strangers arrive in a ship, call him Jemmy Button and invite him to visit their land. Reaching the other side of the ocean, Jemmy finds houses made of rocks “stacked in towers taller than the tallest tree.” The people, colors, noises and costumes make him feel “very small indeed.” Soon, he’s wearing their clothes, attending concerts, and even meeting the king and queen, but he never quite feels at home. When the time comes, he returns to the island, announcing: “My name is Orundellico and I have come home.” The powerful, spare text contrasts Jemmy’s innocent island life with the isolation he feels in England. His alienation is cleverly reinforced by gauche, oil and collage illustrations using flat patterns and color to compare the island’s verdant vegetation and quiet, starry nights with the sterile, geometric shapes of urban London. Diminutive, flesh-colored, bemused Jemmy always stands out in a sea of repetitive, anonymous, faceless silhouettes.
The ultimate home-away-home story, beautifully rendered. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6487-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
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