A puzzling satire that denounces America’s treatment of veterans.
This second edition of a debut illustrated satire critiques the U.S political system.
The animals in the Land of Plenty are being taken advantage of by their crooked and do-nothing government. The rats and snakes that toil on the Hill barely do any work, taking long vacations and accepting gifts from special interest groups. There is a Bald Eagle who is always watching over and listening in on the other animals. The House is composed of rattlesnakes, while the Senate is made up of phantom snakes. The rats, mice, and rabbits who assist them do so under strict rules, including wearing a paper collar: “The paper collar is made out of colored papers that are cut into half-inch strips, rolled, and attached with spit to stay together. It is required by Uncle Big Rat regulations and the other chief rats for showing control.” The military comprises Mighty Mice, who are entitled to services at the Squeaky Hospital, though the rats often find ways of denying these to the warriors. The public is composed of sheep who do and say nothing despite the mistreatment of the Mighty Mice by Uncle Big Rat because they have been brainwashed by the media. The text is accompanied by black-and-white illustrations by Zaborsky. The reader gets the basic sense of what Skyler’s point is—that Washington is corrupt and abandons veterans—but the satire is far too inarticulate to be effective. The nuances of the author’s message are lost beneath the messy layer of jargon that has been laid on top of the targets. Many words are written backward for no apparent reason. (The rat chiefs are heads of departments like “Namuh Secruoser” and “Enicidem.”) The syntax is highly awkward, and no real story ever emerges. This feels much more like the background notes for the world of a planned narrative rather than a narrative itself. Even Zaborsky’s images feel like sketches rather than final products. While surely readers will agree that the federal government has mishandled veteran heath care for many years, this book fails to make that argument in a persuasive or comprehensible way.
A puzzling satire that denounces America’s treatment of veterans.Pub Date: May 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-942901-35-8
Page Count: 110
Publisher: Skyler Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2026 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.
