![Shake the Mango Tree [French/English Edition]](https://d1fd687oe6a92y.cloudfront.net/img/user-media/titles/title/cover/923af4e415b54d4fb64f7cdabcf1171e/424f79f14661414c84d7519386ba2d48.jpg.300x0_q85_autocrop.webp)
Age-appropriate, powerful messages of survival, humanity, and hope.
A young boy in the war-torn Congo makes an arduous journey to freedom in Beardsley’s children’s book.
On her dedication page, the author of this illustrated book for elementary and middle school readers makes it clear that Rupat, the young Congolese boy at the narrative’s empathetic center, is based on a real person, one of countless refugees displaced from their homelands by violent conflicts. (Beardsley’s earlier book, 2020’s My Heart in Kenya, explored a similar theme.) The spare but effective story is presented in both English and French. The text in each language is set against background colors complementing the adjacent, full-page, digital illustrations by Muthoni, which are rendered in expressive detail. The book begins in a village in the Congo where young Rupat lives and goes to school. In his yard is a tree heavy with “the sweet, sticky, juicy mangoes” he loves. Rupat’s peaceful life changes when he’s a teenager—civil war erupts, and the ethnic conflict reaches the family farm. Rupat runs from the “fighting and fires,” not knowing if he’ll ever see his family again. Without overt words or images of violence, the author invites readers’ empathy for Rupat’s desperation as his initial flight into the bush becomes a grueling, one-month trek of “two thousand kilometers,” mostly on foot, over the “Mitumba mountains, through valleys, to the edges of savannahs” with other displaced people. (They see wild animals, but “the only danger,” Beardsley chillingly notes, “was the rebel soldiers.”) The narrative is propelled by the determination that keeps Rupat and others heading for a safer life. In the face of hunger, fear, and injury, the discovery of a heavily laden mango tree becomes a moving symbol of hope. Rupat, whose successful later life is also related here, “can still remember” the sound of the falling fruit “meeting the earth, the footsteps of the children as they rushed to gather up the mangoes, the feeling of relief as they ate until their bellies were full.” The author affectingly describes how Rupat can still taste “the sweet, juicy, sticky, slippery yellow fruit. The taste of relief.”
Age-appropriate, powerful messages of survival, humanity, and hope.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781038329608
Page Count: 52
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fluffy, fast, fun reading for fans of Clueless McGee and the Wimpy Kid.
Miles used to live near the sea. Miles had friends. Miles was his school's greatest prankster...how will he survive a move to Yawnee Valley?
Yawnee Valley is famous for one thing: cows. All new students at Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy receive a booklet of 1,346 interesting cow facts from fussbudget fifth-generation principal Barry Barkin. On the first day of school, when Principal Barkin's car is found mysteriously parked on the school's steps, Barkin suspects Miles and assigns Niles Sparks to be Miles' buddy. Miles can't think of anything more awful than spending every moment of every day with smiling, officious, king-of-the-obvious Niles. On top of that, Barkin's son, Josh, has decided Miles is a good bullying target. To make life interesting, Miles plans a perfect prank in his pranking notebook, but it’s foiled. That's followed by an invitation to join forces in pranking from an unexpected source...no way! Let the prank war commence! Barnett and John launch their cow-resplendent illustrated series with the humorous origin story of the pranking duo who lend the series its name. Characters may be stock; however, the pranks are anything but, and it's peppered with cow facts. Cornell’s goofy cartoon illustrations (especially the blasé cows) add giggles aplenty.
Fluffy, fast, fun reading for fans of Clueless McGee and the Wimpy Kid. (Fiction. 7-11)Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1491-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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