Sophia’s master is alchemist to the King, who gives him a yearly allowance to turn lead into gold, something the little brown dog’s master has yet to accomplish. When the King announces he’s coming to visit, the alchemist has two weeks to produce gold. Driven by bad dreams, he sketches them in his book, hoping to transform them into a magic formula. When Sophia accidentally tracks ink across his notations, her master desperately tries to find an answer in them but to no avail. Sophia takes things into her paws and with the help of an angel and an imp, she combines things from the smells on the paper and voilà, gold! The King arrives and when the alchemist has no gold to show him, Sophia is ready to roll out her gold lump when the King finds treasure of a different sort—in the alchemist’s sketches. Now dubbed painter to the King, he creates gold by mixing pigments with egg yolks for paint. Jackson’s (Escape South, not reviewed, etc.) illustrations of acrylic, pen and ink, and colored pencil provide historical context for the story. The text appears on parchment images that are set against sketches and drawings, adding dimension and creating a visual multi-layered effect that is as enchanting as the story. A somewhat longer text and a slightly formal style make this perfect for reading or telling aloud, and the art will captivate its audience as well. Truly magical. (Fiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-84279-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Richard Jackson/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fantasy training wheels for chapter-book readers.
Elliot’s first day of school turns out to be more than he bargained for.
Elliot Eisner—skinny and pale with curly brown hair—is a bit nervous about being the new kid. Thankfully, he hits it off with fellow new student, “punk rock”–looking Uchenna Devereaux, a black girl with twists (though they actually look like dreads in Aly’s illustrations). On a first-day field trip to New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, the pair investigates a noise in the trees. The cause? A Jersey Devil: a blue-furred, red-bellied and -winged mythical creature that looks like “a tiny dragon” with cloven hooves, like a deer’s, on its hind feet. Unwittingly, the duo bonds with the creature by feeding it, and it later follows them back to the bus. Unsurprisingly, they lose the creature (which they alternately nickname Jersey and Bonechewer), which forces them to go to their intimidating, decidedly odd teacher, Peruvian Professor Fauna, for help in recovering it. The book closes with Professor Fauna revealing the truth—he heads a secret organization committed to protecting mythical creatures—and inviting the children to join, a neat setup for what is obviously intended to be a series. The predictable plot is geared to newly independent readers who are not yet ready for the usual heft of contemporary fantasies. A brief history lesson given by a mixed-race associate of Fauna’s in which she compares herself to the American “melting pot” manages to come across as simultaneously corrective and appropriative.
Fantasy training wheels for chapter-book readers. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-3170-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fact and fiction dovetail neatly in this tale of a wonderfully resolute child who finds a memorable way to convince her father that the newly-finished Brooklyn Bridge is safe to cross. Having watched the great bridge going up for most of her young life, Hannah is eager to walk it, but despite repeated, fact-laced appeals to reason (and Hannah is a positive fount of information about its materials and design), her father won’t be moved: “No little girl of mine will cross that metal monster!” Hannah finally hatches a far-fetched plan to convince him once and for all; can she persuade the renowned P.T. Barnum to march his corps of elephants across? She can, and does (actually, he was already planning to do it). Pham places Hannah, radiating sturdy confidence, within sepia-toned, exactly rendered period scenes that capture both the grandeur of the bridge in its various stages of construction, and the range of expressions on the faces of onlookers during its opening ceremonies and after. Readers will applaud Hannah’s polite persistence. (afterword, resources) (Picture book. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-689-87011-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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