A favorite Frost poem reveals how serendipitous choice affects a lifetime.
Robert Frost’s familiar 1915 poem presents enigmatic choices for an elementary-age boy.
A red-haired elementary-age boy trekking through golden woods with a beagle comes to a place where “two roads diverged.” Wishing he could “travel both,” the boy studies one road and then chooses the less-worn path, opting to keep the other road for “another day,” knowing he’s unlikely to “ever come back” and taking the road “less traveled by” could “make all the difference.” Richly hued illustrations in a palette of yellows and blues rely on simple rounded shapes, flat patterns, varying perspectives, and single- and double-page spreads to provide a possible context for Frost’s spare verse. Dwarfed by stylized trees resembling giant yellow toadstools, the boy begins his journey wearing a striped hoodie, blue backpack, jeans, and red boots. An impressive treetop view shows boy and beagle confronting the diverging path, emphasizing the magnitude of choice. The boy picks up fallen leaves, ponders two unknown roads, selects a leaf for his backpack, and proceeds along his chosen path. As he journeys, scenes from his ensuing life unfold, carrying him from childhood to becoming a young man with a family and eventually an elderly man, still musing about the choice he made in the woods that indeed changed everything. Inexplicably, his hair darkens from red to brown with a single page turn, which is likely to befuddle more than one reader.
A favorite Frost poem reveals how serendipitous choice affects a lifetime. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64170-107-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Familius
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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