One-upping the painted illustrations in Graeme Base’s Discovery of Dragons (1996), these elaborately casual snapshots capture glimpses of 16 fairies observed in various leafy, far-flung locales. Adopting the persona of a scientist bent on completing a predecessor’s 19th-century field guide, Scalora provides (in a ridiculously tiny typeface) travel notes and background; the glossy full-color photographs—created using live models, wings constructed from a variety of materials, and computer manipulation—range from full-body views to fleeting hints of a face or form. Lushly hued (each of the fairies here is associated with a color), they evoke a shadowy, elusive realm hidden, usually, within our own; readers susceptible to the likes of Nancy Willard’s Alphabet of Angels (1994) or caught up in the recent revival of the Victorian-era fairy fad will be beguiled by the mystery and magic here. For everyone else, the book’s closing credits, with lists of stylists, models, equipment, and acknowledgments, provide a refreshing peek into the mechanics behind the photographs. (Picture book. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028234-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
Swinburne sets out to teach young children about how shadows are created, describing night as a shadow on the earth, and giving children tangible reasons for why shadows vary in size, shape, and location. The latter half of the book invites readers to guess the origins of the shadows in vivid full-color photographs; subsequent pages provide the answers to the mysteries. A foreword contains information regarding the scientific reasons for shadows, which can be explained to small children, but it is the array of photographs that truly invites youngsters to take a closer look and analyze the world around them with an eye for the details. (Picture book/nonfiction. 3-5).
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-56397-724-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
Deliberately constructed, Wilson’s wordless picture book makes an adroit and whimsical artistic statement and invites audience participation. On the title page, a child’s hands reach toward a bundle of colored pencils dangling from a branch; the pencils are in bright colors but everything else is sketched in black and white. In careful detail, the child draws a magpie seen on a branch outside the window (perhaps the same branch where the pencils were hung) and when the drawing is completed, the bird flies away from the paper. The child draws cherries, shimmering red on the page, and the bird eats them; the child draws an orange balloon, which the bird pops. Things get a little dangerous when the bird grabs a piece of yellow that sets the page afire and then scribbles blue water that makes a mess. Drawings and events co-determine each other: the child has cages the magpie, the bird grabs the eraser through the bars and escapes the cage, and so it goes, to a last laugh when a claw seizes the pencils and makes a brilliant rainbow of feathers. The only words are the names of the colors, appearing at the end. The realistic drawing style and the use of saturated color on an otherwise black-and-white page are an arresting combination. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8037-2354-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
