An artistic showcase that also serves as a teaser for a once-popular, and not entirely dated, children’s classic.
Intricate cut-paper overlays highlight the art that accompanies this abbreviated version of the travels of a peripatetic young Swede.
Being much abridged and a bit modernized (“ ‘Weird-looking bird!’ said the fisherman, tying him up and placing him in a basket”), these 22 recast chapters from the 1906 story and its sequel, Further Adventures of Nils, read as a series of partially sketched incidents with abrupt transitions. Still, the overall plot, which features a trickster lad who is transformed into an elf and flies all over Sweden on the backs of birds, remains intact, and the narrative captures the flavor of the originals, strewn with place names—Lagerlöf was commissioned to write the works as geography lessons—and narrow escapes from danger. Latyk’s illustrations look like retro screen prints, with thin layers of blue and pink the predominant colors and small, stylized figures placed against misty backdrops. On five spreads, wordless expanses of landscape flank black stencils pierced with the outlines of finely detailed buildings, creatures, and natural details (a sixth cutting fills a large window in the cover). The relationship of these special pages to the tale is, at best, tangential, but they do add a memorable element to the presentation.
An artistic showcase that also serves as a teaser for a once-popular, and not entirely dated, children’s classic. (map) (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-91027-719-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Words & Pictures
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Readers will be “plane” inclined to ditch this screw-up.
An introduction to simple machines that goes wrong at “Fort” and just gets worse.
Wedging the informational content into uncommonly awful verse (“These are the wheels and axles / that move my wagon without hassles”), a young narrator describes each step in the construction of said “fort” (actually, in the bland illustrations, an elaborately designed playhouse). In doing so, the book demonstrates each of six simple machines, mostly tools, in action, though not always in the right order or with much sense to their use. Grandpa, who furnishes most of the labor, really should be levering up rocks to clear the site before, not after, the project’s sawn boards have been assembled, for instance. Moreover, the tools on display include a never-seen-in-use hammer and spirit level, plus a pulley that would be useful for a treehouse but is nonsensical here: “This is the pulley that brings up the treats, / so yummy and sweet that we love to eat.” Looking much larger inside than out in final views, the finished building is furnished as a science lab and in a shocking (shocking) denouement, the owner turns out to be a girl. A visual quiz, explanatory notes and other pedagogical backmatter fill the closing pages.
Readers will be “plane” inclined to ditch this screw-up. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-60718-620-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sylvan Dell
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
A familiar story skillfully reimagined for today’s gadget-savvy youth.
Hannah Hadley is a young special agent who must thwart a clear and present danger to the United States in Hoover’s “smart is cool” young adult novel.
Hannah Hadley might seem like most 13-year-old girls. She enjoys painting, playing with her MP3 player and spending time with friends. But that’s where the similarities end. Hadley doubles as Agent 10-1, among the youngest spies drafted into the CIA’s Div Y department. She’s joined in her missions by her 10-pound Shih Tzu, Kiwi (with whom she communicates telepathically), and her best friend Tommie Claire, a blind girl with heightened senses. When duty calls, the group sneaks to a hidden command center located under the floor of Hadley’s art studio. Her current mission, aptly named “Operation Farmer Jones,” takes her to a secluded farmhouse in Canada. There, al-Qaida terrorists have gathered the necessary ingredients for a particularly devastating nuclear warhead that they intend to fire into America. The villains are joined by the Mad Madam of Mayhem, a physicist for hire whom the terrorists force to complete the weapon of mass destruction. With Charlie Higson’s Young James Bond series and the ongoing 39 Clues novellas, covert missions and secret plans are the plots of choice in much of today’s fiction for young readers, and references to the famed 007 stories abound in Hoover’s tale. But while the plot feels familiar, Hoover’s use of modern slang—albeit strained at times—and gadgets such as the iTouch appeal to today’s youth. Placing girls in adult situations has been a mainstay since Mildred Wirt Benson first introduced readers to Nancy Drew in The Secret of the Old Clock, but Hannah Hadley is like Nancy Drew on steroids. Both are athletic, score well in their studies and have a measure of popularity. Hadley, however, displays a genius-level intellect and near superhuman abilities in her efforts to roust the terrorists—handy skills for a young teen spy who just so happens to get the best grades in school.
A familiar story skillfully reimagined for today’s gadget-savvy youth.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-0615419688
Page Count: 239
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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