A rare variant of a nearly universal myth, with powerfully evocative illustrations.
A Tsimshian artist links a flood tale from his village to a frequently performed potlatch dance.
As in Vickers and Budd’s earlier Northwest Coast retelling, Cloudwalker (2014), richly colored woodblock-print illustrations add strong notes of mysticism and ritual to a tersely related episode. After a group of children heedlessly captures a crow and pulls out its feathers, floods cover the land and drive all the people into canoes. Their frantic prayers go unanswered until the Chief of the Heavens, seeing that the birds have no place to alight, restores peace to the land by letting the waters recede. The humbled people rebuild, renew their respect for all life, and commemorate the event forever after with a Peace Dance that is marked by shaking out eagle down for remembrance. The full-page illustrations begin with idyllic scenes of shorelines and boats, all overlaid with ghostly Northwest Coast motifs. Later, more-turbulent views of silhouetted figures amid swirling waves give way to a climactic double-page spread panorama of a restored, sunlit landscape rich in flora and distinctively stylized fauna. The story will likely be new to readers outside the culture; Vickers closes with a note on his own lineage and how he learned both the dance and the tale directly from elders.
A rare variant of a nearly universal myth, with powerfully evocative illustrations. (Picture book/folk tale. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-55017-739-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harbour Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education.
A young visionary describes his ideal school: “Perfectly planned and impeccably clean. / On a scale, 1 to 10, it’s more like 15!”
In keeping with the self-indulgently fanciful lines of If I Built a Car (2005) and If I Built a House (2012), young Jack outlines in Seussian rhyme a shiny, bright, futuristic facility in which students are swept to open-roofed classes in clear tubes, there are no tests but lots of field trips, and art, music, and science are afterthoughts next to the huge and awesome gym, playground, and lunchroom. A robot and lots of cute puppies (including one in a wheeled cart) greet students at the door, robotically made-to-order lunches range from “PB & jelly to squid, lightly seared,” and the library’s books are all animated popups rather than the “everyday regular” sorts. There are no guards to be seen in the spacious hallways—hardly any adults at all, come to that—and the sparse coed student body features light- and dark-skinned figures in roughly equal numbers, a few with Asian features, and one in a wheelchair. Aside from the lack of restrooms, it seems an idyllic environment—at least for dog-loving children who prefer sports and play over quieter pursuits.
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55291-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 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.
