Rewarding, potent, and wholly original.
A familiar fairy tale is given a historical spin.
An enslaved Black girl dubbed CeeCee (her real name is a “secret…kept close to her heart”) toils endlessly for the Townsends, a cruel white family who own a plantation in Maryland. She’s prohibited from reading, but as she overhears the stories the children are learning to read, she’s inspired, and she begins to yearn for more. She faces an uphill battle; whenever Mrs. Townsend notices CeeCee so much as glancing at the pages of a book, she locks the girl in the mouse-infested attic. But her hopes are sustained by Binty, the cook, who plays the role of fairy godmother in this grounded retelling of “Cinderella.” As CeeCee falls asleep one night, Binty’s tales of Moses, a savior whom enslaved people follow to freedom, blend with her fantasies of Cinderella’s prince (portrayed as a Black man wearing a crown and kente cloth), and she awakens determined to escape to the North. Brimming with warmth, Freeman’s full-color digital illustrations depict the freckle-faced young protagonist’s melancholy in heartbreaking detail, while her vivid use of pattern and textures gives the visuals an almost three-dimensional, utterly immersive feel. Layering together references to the beloved fairy tale, Christian theology, and history, Keller celebrates the power of stories while paying tribute to the courage of all those who endured chattel enslavement.
Rewarding, potent, and wholly original. (source note; information on Harriet Tubman, names during slavery, and fairy tales) (Picture book. 5–8)Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9781623543891
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...
Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.
The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-934133-57-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Mackinac Island Press
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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