Both amusing and instructive, with broad appeal and excellent illustrations.
Collected limericks for children ages 8 to 12 humorously present factual tidbits from science and history with comic-book–style illustrations.
In his debut book, Hoyman combines two forms that kids love—limericks and comic books—to offer one-page lessons on various subjects. Five panels, one for each line of the limerick (sometimes with additional comments from characters in word balloons), are followed by a sixth with more information. The opening limerick, for example, concerns jesters: “The jester was called by the King, / To tell a few riddles and sing. / Instead of his shtick, / He “pigeoned” in sick, / And was exiled up north of Peking.” The jester can be seen telling the beginning of a joke (“Did you hear the one about the bubonic plague?”), juggling, sending a messenger pigeon to the king while enjoying a day off fishing, and finally being tossed over the Great Wall of China. The sixth panel explains how jesters entertained kings and noblemen and what “exile” means. Other topics, in no particular order, include animals, such as anglerfish and chimpanzees; history and culture, such as the Pony Express, lamplighters, and clowns; and inventions, such as concrete. A glossary is included. Hoyman’s limericks generally scan and rhyme well, and background information is always interesting. One entry, based on what may be a true story, introduces readers to Sadie “the Goat” Farrell, a Hudson River pirate known for head-butting people. She lost her left ear—bitten off, as the sixth panel explains, by Gallus Mag, a New York City tavern bouncer. Some limericks are gross, a few didactic, and many straightforwardly informational. No sources are provided for these facts, but they seem sound; “caveman,” however, is an obsolete term. Feldman (Noah Learns To Share, 2017, etc.) varies his panels in size and distance (wide, medium, and close-up shots), giving them depth with good shadowing and a rich palette. His human figures are diverse and somewhat stylized but show expression well.
Both amusing and instructive, with broad appeal and excellent illustrations.Pub Date: March 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73281-860-6
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dramatic skill and rich historical details make for a successful YA book, especially for readers with a particular interest...
Based on the reminiscences of Varble’s late husband, this young-adult novella describes a 6-year-old boy’s adventures in Simi Valley in the summer of 1934.
Recounting the adventures of Johnny, son of a tenant farmer during the Great Depression, the novella is as much a portrait of Simi Valley between the world wars as it is a portrayal of a boy’s awakening to an adult world. Rich in vivid historical detail—e.g., Johnny is born on March 11, 1928, the day before Francis Mullholland’s Saint Francis Dam fails, drowning hundreds in what remains one of the state’s greatest losses of life—the novella is also a deft sketch of a rural American life that has largely disappeared. Executed with a historian’s eye, Varble draws on research and recollection to vividly evoke Johnny’s family and valley life, including a cavalcade of colorful local figures, from the voluptuous Aunt Belle, to an Okie family fleeing the “black blizzards” of the Dust Bowl (storms which tripled in frequency from 14 in 1932 to 52 in 1934), to Andy, Johnny’s father’s friend who returns from San Quentin after serving time for the murder of his wife. While the characterizations can be overly simple, the details of time and place are often riveting: the harvesting of barley, the lighting of a wood stove, California “car culture” before licenses were commonplace, the hunting of a mountain lion. In prose as simple as a Hemingway story, the novella offers young readers a glimpse of an almost unimaginably unplugged world. Brief chapters keep the book fleet-footed even as they credibly reveal crucial steps to maturity—from curiosity to desire, from loss to altruism. The reader’s awareness of fascism’s rise in Europe—and Johnny’s likely future as a soldier—lends gravity to a tale that might otherwise seem a nostalgic look back at simpler times.
Dramatic skill and rich historical details make for a successful YA book, especially for readers with a particular interest in California.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477276976
Page Count: 130
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The lone-wolf-finds-love YA formula, tweaked and reshaped with a poet’s sensibilities.
A dark and complex young-adult fantasy of love, longing and war.
Roberts’ remarkably accomplished, involving (if lamentably titled) YA novel centers on Fang—a nightmare embodied in the form of a large, ferocious black dog with the thoughts, feelings and soul of a classic teen-novel bad-boy hero. Fang inhabits the Dark—a shifting, kaleidoscopic landscape inhabited by other nightmares, demons and brawling angels—where his “Muse” sits all day sad and silent in her ramshackle house, indifferent to Fang’s feelings for her. Fang’s existence as a stalker of other people’s dreams is being challenged from multiple directions (and by multiple females)—his indifferent Muse, the dreaming mortal girl Anna, and even Lily, a demon with hair like “blood” and a surprisingly romantic heart (“I’d trade a house full of regular flowers for just one,” Lily tells our hero, “if it was picked because it was perfect for me”). Complicating matters at the outset is Fang’s friend Jeffery, who concocts a scheme to radically extend the reach and power of the Dark—a plan that eventually upsets the delicate balance of power in the supernatural realm and sparks a war. Scene-stealer Baal heads the team of bad angels. He contemptuously tells one of the good guys, “Not all of us spend every night praying we could lick our Father’s boots again.” Roberts charges virtually every scene with tension and some refreshingly unsentimental dialogue, and the underpinning worldbuilding is complex and convincing. Through adroit pacing, distinctive characters (especially Fang himself, who’s the perfect balance of tough and tender) and some quite lovely prose, he crafts a story of surprising emotional punch.
The lone-wolf-finds-love YA formula, tweaked and reshaped with a poet’s sensibilities.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2013
ISBN: 9781620070802
Page Count: 277
Publisher: Curiosity Quills Press
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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