A creative and distinctive work recommended for art aficionados of all ages.
Dragon-shaped collages feature diverse artistic styles in this picture book.
Parlato asserts that “Art is where Dragons first got their start” and explains the styles the beasts love. The work presents dragon-shaped collages filled with manipulated images of various elements. For example, when the text tells readers that “Dragons Love the Art struck on coins…meant to be spent and commemorate great achievements,” the accompanying dragon is assembled out of vivid images of coins. Some dragons are collaged in particular art styles, like cubism (“Dragons Love how ‘Cubism’ re-imagines the world in simple flat and folded shapes”). Another piece incorporates a van Gogh painting. Some include images of everyday elements, like mosaic tiles, shells, fruits, and graffiti street murals. The author implores the audience to be artistic, noting that “the Art…Dragons most Love…is the Art you dear reader may be inspired to make.” The tale’s intricate collage renderings by the author are exceptional. Although the book relies heavily on its visuals, the educational narrative offers introductory insights into an assortment of artistic forms. Due to the detailed images, this work will function best as an art book that readers can take their time flipping through as opposed to a quiet bedtime story selection. Readers will enjoy visiting this book over and over again, as new facets in the collages will surely be found and appreciated.
A creative and distinctive work recommended for art aficionados of all ages.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77229-041-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simply Read Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda.
Hank Zipzer, poster boy for dyslexic middle graders everywhere, stars in a new prequel series highlighting second-grade trials and triumphs.
Hank’s hopes of playing Aqua Fly, a comic-book character, in the upcoming class play founder when, despite plenty of coaching and preparation, he freezes up during tryouts. He is not particularly comforted when his sympathetic teacher adds a nonspeaking role as a bookmark to the play just for him. Following the pattern laid down in his previous appearances as an older child, he gets plenty of help and support from understanding friends (including Ashley Wong, a new apartment-house neighbor). He even manages to turn lemons into lemonade with a quick bit of improv when Nick “the Tick” McKelty, the sneering classmate who took his preferred role, blanks on his lines during the performance. As the aforementioned bully not only chokes in the clutch and gets a demeaning nickname, but is fat, boastful and eats like a pig, the authors’ sensitivity is rather one-sided. Still, Hank has a winning way of bouncing back from adversity, and like the frequent black-and-white line-and-wash drawings, the typeface is designed with easy legibility in mind.
An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-448-48239-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans both young and formerly young will be pleased—100 percent.
Published in magazines, never seen since / Now resurrected for pleasure intense / Versified episodes numbering four / Featuring Marco, and Horton and more!
All of the entries in this follow-up to The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories (2011) involve a certain amount of sharp dealing. Horton carries a Kwuggerbug through crocodile-infested waters and up a steep mountain because “a deal is a deal”—and then is cheated out of his promised share of delicious Beezlenuts. Officer Pat heads off escalating, imagined disasters on Mulberry Street by clubbing a pesky gnat. Marco (originally met on that same Mulberry Street) concocts a baroque excuse for being late to school. In the closer, a smooth-talking Grinch (not the green sort) sells a gullible Hoobub a piece of string. In a lively introduction, uber-fan Charles D. Cohen (The Seuss, The Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss, 2002) provides publishing histories, places characters and settings in Seussian context, and offers insights into, for instance, the origin of “Grinch.” Along with predictably engaging wordplay—“He climbed. He grew dizzy. His ankles grew numb. / But he climbed and he climbed and he clum and he clum”—each tale features bright, crisply reproduced renditions of its original illustrations. Except for “The Hoobub and the Grinch,” which has been jammed into a single spread, the verses and pictures are laid out in spacious, visually appealing ways.
Fans both young and formerly young will be pleased—100 percent. (Picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-38298-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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