A fine first introduction to an age-old tale of travel, adventure, and heroism.
Murder, intrigue, betrayal, patricide, regicide, and more constitute Jason’s epic quest for the Golden Fleece.
Like most Greek myths, Jason’s journey to complete a near-impossible task unfolds through an episodic plot in which the gods interfere with the mortals constantly—for good or ill. When Jason’s evil uncle, Pelias, usurps the throne of his father, Aeson, king of Iolcus, Jason’s mother wisely sends him to the forest to be raised by Chiron the centaur. Upon Jason’s return to Iolcus to defeat Pelias, Hera, wife of Zeus, appears to him and promises her guidance and protection, which she delivers throughout his journey. Pelias refuses to relinquish the throne unless Jason brings him the Golden Fleece (the background story of which Byrd also includes in this volume). Jason then gathers the finest Greek men, commissions the Argo, and embarks upon a journey with colossal challenges. Byrd eases navigation of this text-heavy picture book by illustrating the unimaginable, such as bronze-beaked Stymphalian birds with dart-shooting feathers and Scylla, part hag, part fish, with six fanged dog’s heads protruding from her torso. Each double-page spread constitutes a chapter, making for good-sized chunks for episodic read-alouds. Sidebars give brief background on characters, the backmatter introduces the Olympians, and front and back endpapers show maps of Jason’s route.
A fine first introduction to an age-old tale of travel, adventure, and heroism. (Mythology. 6-9)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8037-4118-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Less stylish than Ed Young’s classic Seven Blind Mice but a serviceable rendition nonetheless.
An Iranian-American author recasts an anecdote from the Persian poet Rumi, itself based on a far older tale about perceiving parts of a truth rather than its whole.
Javaherbin adds characters and plot to the bare-bones original and reduces Rumi’s lengthy mystical exegesis to a line. So curious are local villagers about the strange beast Ahmad the merchant has brought from India that they sneak into the dark barn where the creature is kept. Each returns with a different impression: one trips over the animal’s nose and announces that it’s like a snake, but it is more like a tree to one who feels its leg, and so on. Their squabble is so intense that they don’t even notice when Ahmad arrives to lead the elephant out to the river—leaving each with “only a small piece of the truth.” Yelchin outfits the villagers in curly-toed slippers and loose, brightly patterned caftans. He also puts a nifty spin on the story by leaving the adults to argue obliviously but surrounding the elephant at the wordless end with smiling, plainly clearer-eyed children. Though the language is bland, the wildly gesticulating figures in the illustrations add a theatrical element, and the episode makes its points in a forthright way. An excellent source note traces the familiar tale back to its earliest versions.
Less stylish than Ed Young’s classic Seven Blind Mice but a serviceable rendition nonetheless. (Picture book/folk tale. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-63670-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
An appealingly if occasionally problematically illustrated browser that may pose more questions than it answers.
Sixteen uncommon trees from around the world describe themselves, in first, er, person, in this charmingly illustrated but odd French import.
Each woody marvel is described in a separate two-page, colorfully bordered spread, with facts given on the verso and a dreamy, folk-style painting opposite. Included are such strange botanicals as the “ghost tree,” the “bullhorn tree,” and the “dynamite tree.” Problems branch out: the trees don’t say if their nicknames are common usage—or if they’re the author’s own arch inventions. The “self-portraits” provide some useful information, including scientific and/or other common names and occasional thumbnail sketches of fruits and seeds, though some facts may be over the target audience’s heads. However, the “autobiographies” are also often marred by silly, self-conscious hipness. The trees’ places of origin are only seldom named within the descriptions, and maps of continents on the endpapers are only very general guides. The sprightly paintings sometimes reflect stereotypes: a male Native American standing next to a sequoia carries a tomahawk and wears a Plains Indian feathered headdress, for instance. Furthermore, while noteworthy, some trees aren’t so strange or little-known at all, despite exotic monikers: the “chocolate tree” is the cocoa tree, the “forty-coin tree” is the gingko biloba, and the “giant sequoia” is the renowned U.S. treasure. There is no glossary.
An appealingly if occasionally problematically illustrated browser that may pose more questions than it answers. (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61689-459-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
© 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
