A story of nostalgic enchantment is this account of ten-year-old Becky and her birthday. In a period where children are glutted by material reassurances of parental affection, the story of a country birthday made memorable by gifts of flowers, a hay ride, and homemade ice cream is not only romantic, it is refreshing. Tasha Tudor's illustrations are soft and evocative of a less harsh time in which experience was less mechanized and more in harmony with the rhythm of nature. A poetic recapitulation of what is one of the most significant anniversaries in a person's life, the celebration of having lived one decade.
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1960
ISBN: 0670153923
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This companion piece to the other fairy tales Marcia Brown has interpreted (see Puss In Boots, 1952, p. 548 and others) has the smoothness of a good translation and a unique charm to her feathery light pictures. The pictures have been done in sunset colors and the spreads on each page as they illustrate the story have the cumulative effect of soft cloud banks. Gentle.
Pub Date: June 15, 1954
ISBN: 0684126761
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1954
The journey, not the arrival matters. . . to the extent that once Silverstein's freehand circular "it" finds the pie-shaped missing piece it's been seeking all along, it decides to do without it—for when the wedge-like gap that had functioned as a sort of mouth is filled in, "it" is unable to sing. The whole fable bears more resemblance to a Pfeiffer cartoon than to the fat book it appears on the outside; the "mouth" and a dot for an eye are all that make "it" a creature of sorts, and there's nothing else on the bare white pages but the line it rolls along, the small scale butterfly, flower, etc., it encounters on the way, and the various other "pieces" it tries before finding the perfect one. However, the very childlike sparseness of words and lines at least leaves room for application without forcing any—and we'll take "its" approach to life over that of Silverstein's Giving Tree any day.
Pub Date: April 14, 1976
ISBN: 978-0-06-025671-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1976
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