Heavy-handed in its environmental message but still enjoyable.
Kyu-chan, a mischievous Japanese water creature, is the last kappa because of a changing environment.
Folklore, a 19th-century story, an environmental plea, and a pourquoi story about kappamaki, a popular sushi roll, combine to make a clunky, overcrowded picture book that nevertheless still engages readers, especially those seeking a page-by-page bilingual text. Norihei, an ordinary farm boy, meets Kyu, a kappa away from his river too long, and saves his life by splashing him with water. They become fast friends, but Kyu’s family decides to move away because the “area is getting dangerous.” The humans are affecting the environment with their railroads and electricity, a trend that will cause Kyu’s kind to die out. Before leaving, the kappa gives the boy a magic talisman if ever Norihei needs help with water. Norihei grows up, marries, has a child, and starts a restaurant. When his baby falls into a stream, the grown man calls upon his old friend (looking very aged due to human disregard for clean water) for assistance. Norihei names cucumber-filled sushi rolls after him as a reward. “Cultural Notes” provide background information, along with a joke about kappas evolving into “ninja turtles.” The illustrations, mostly bordered rectangles set against handmade paper, combine elements of Japanese wood-carved prints with cartoonlike faces and great detail, showing both traditional agricultural scenes and industrialization.
Heavy-handed in its environmental message but still enjoyable. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-4-8053-1399-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tuttle
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education.
A young visionary describes his ideal school: “Perfectly planned and impeccably clean. / On a scale, 1 to 10, it’s more like 15!”
In keeping with the self-indulgently fanciful lines of If I Built a Car (2005) and If I Built a House (2012), young Jack outlines in Seussian rhyme a shiny, bright, futuristic facility in which students are swept to open-roofed classes in clear tubes, there are no tests but lots of field trips, and art, music, and science are afterthoughts next to the huge and awesome gym, playground, and lunchroom. A robot and lots of cute puppies (including one in a wheeled cart) greet students at the door, robotically made-to-order lunches range from “PB & jelly to squid, lightly seared,” and the library’s books are all animated popups rather than the “everyday regular” sorts. There are no guards to be seen in the spacious hallways—hardly any adults at all, come to that—and the sparse coed student body features light- and dark-skinned figures in roughly equal numbers, a few with Asian features, and one in a wheelchair. Aside from the lack of restrooms, it seems an idyllic environment—at least for dog-loving children who prefer sports and play over quieter pursuits.
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55291-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some...
With a little help from his audience, a young storyteller gets over a solid case of writer’s block in this engaging debut.
Despite the (sometimes creatively spelled) examples produced by all his classmates and the teacher’s assertion that “Stories are everywhere!” Ralph can’t get past putting his name at the top of his paper. One day, lying under the desk in despair, he remembers finding an inchworm in the park. That’s all he has, though, until his classmates’ questions—“Did it feel squishy?” “Did your mom let you keep it?” “Did you name it?”—open the floodgates for a rousing yarn featuring an interloping toddler, a broad comic turn and a dramatic rescue. Hanlon illustrates the episode with childlike scenes done in transparent colors, featuring friendly-looking children with big smiles and widely spaced button eyes. The narrative text is printed in standard type, but the children’s dialogue is rendered in hand-lettered printing within speech balloons. The episode is enhanced with a page of elementary writing tips and the tantalizing titles of his many subsequent stories (“When I Ate Too Much Spaghetti,” “The Scariest Hamster,” “When the Librarian Yelled Really Loud at Me,” etc.) on the back endpapers.
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some budding young writers off and running. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-0761461807
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amazon Children's Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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