A fanciful guide to nature’s wonders; beautiful, clever, and appealing in every way—a fine achievement.
This illustrated fictional reproduction of a Victorian field guide helps identify imaginary and legendary creatures.
According to the Introduction, said to be written by Angus Willoughby, “CRYPTOZOOLOGIST AND NATURALIST,” this volume contains truthful accounts “of the strange and unusual in the world of nature” so that readers may be best prepared to encounter, propitiate, or avoid them. The beings are grouped into four kinds of Folk (Fey, Wee, Great, and Wyre) and five types of Creature: those that live with people and those of the land, sea, air, and night. Each entry includes an illustration with size, habitat, and description. A Banshee, for example, is 4 to 6 feet tall; its habitat is “Houses; Dark and stormy nights”; and it “appears to those who are to suffer the death of a family member.” Many entries include helpful information: “Upon finding a Land Kraken in your barn or stable, it is recommended that you drive it out as quickly as possible.” While some beings are familiar from folklore (such as Elf, Sasquatch, and Goblin), others are humorous inventions (Thinking Cap, Newsie, and Jackalope). An appendix provides an alphabetical index plus Folk calendars, a bibliography, and an advertising section (for example, “Dr. Pythagoras’ Patented Pixilation Cure”). Barnwell (Oneirognosis, 2015, etc.) is a professional artist, printmaker, and illustrator whose work has been exhibited internationally. The book’s images are perhaps the stars of this show—a brilliantly successful pastiche of Victorian engravings in their exquisite detail, subtle tonal and shading techniques such as hatching and crosshatching, and moodiness (romantic, whimsical, solemn, or eerie as suitable to the Creature or Folk described). The Victorian style offers some especially amusing images; Cyclops, for example, is a prosperous-looking, bearded gentleman with a better claim to his monocle than most. But the text, which describes absurdities in all Victorian seriousness, has a delightfully wry undertone and sometimes veers from the expected. Cyclopes, for example, “are cultured and civilized….Sadly, to date, elected office has eluded them.”
A fanciful guide to nature’s wonders; beautiful, clever, and appealing in every way—a fine achievement.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73396-490-6
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Antarctica Arts
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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
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APPRECIATIONS
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