A fine choice for reading aloud or alone, rich in creatures more magical than frightening.
Lively yarn-spinning, delightful illustrations, and handsome bookmaking again make a winning combination in this follow-up to the creators’ An Illustrated Treasury of Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales (2012).
Breslin opens with a tale of St. Columba and the Loch Ness monster and closes with an encounter between a clever fox and a cleverer young girl—adversaries who previously met, with a similar result, in the other collection’s closer. In between, she dishes up fluently retold versions of tales featuring a child selkie, mermen, and Wee Folk; a Robert Louis Stevenson cameo; Thomas the Rhymer’s sojourn with the queen of Faeryland; and how Finn MacCool built the Giant’s Causeway in order to fight the Scots giant Benandonner. With the exception of a skinless Nuckelavee that unwisely tangles with an old wise woman and is in any case left unseen, the monsters here are mostly benign sorts—even the draconic Island Beast snoozes peacefully in its only appearance and is rendered in such warm red and golden tones that it seems more decorative than dangerous. Leiper likewise supplies all 11 tales with bright illustrations that generally run evocatively along the broad margins and off the edges of the pages, offering not scenes of violence but idyllic glimpses of finely modeled small animals and objects, appealingly distracted figures in historical dress, and grassy Scottish hills.
A fine choice for reading aloud or alone, rich in creatures more magical than frightening. (glossary) (Folk tales. 7-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-7825-0195-4
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Floris
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
A true-to-life portrait of a young girl’s cheerful selfishness in this surprisingly optimistic novel of unrelenting poverty
Homeless orphan Valli is always friendly, if amoral.
When Valli can, she sneaks glimpses at Bollywood dances, learns a little reading or throws rocks at the monsters—people without faces or fingers—who live on the other side of the tracks. Most of the time, however, she picks up coal. Sick of beatings, hunger and coal, Valli hides on a passing truck, fleeing her life of poverty for a life of… well, more poverty, but also more excitement. On the Kolkata streets she lives day-to-day. Constantly starving, she contentedly begs and steals; when she has something she doesn't need (a bit of extra soap, a blanket), she passes it on to somebody else. When Valli tries her luck begging from kind Dr. Indra, she learns she has leprosy, just like the faceless monsters back home. It takes some time, but Valli learns to accept help from the women who offer it to her: Dr. Indra, who works at the leprosy hospital; Neeta, a sales manager with leprosy who teaches Valli how to make pie charts; Laxmi, a teenager who's been burned. An emphasis on Christmas falls discordant, but Valli’s journey from stubborn solitude to member of a community is richly fulfilling.
A true-to-life portrait of a young girl’s cheerful selfishness in this surprisingly optimistic novel of unrelenting poverty . (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55498-134-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
Sophisticated, inventive art invites close viewings for patient readers in this unusual family story.
Flashes of multi-media brilliance illuminate this darkly colored, leisurely paced memoir of childhood in Shanghai.
With war approaching, Baba (daddy) searches for a place to keep Ma and their five kids safe. “The safest part of Shanghai was where the embassies were—on the edge, next to fields,” but that land is too expensive to purchase. Baba makes a deal: He’ll use his engineering skills to build “a big brick house… with courtyards, gardens, [and] a swimming pool” that his family can inhabit for 20 years, after which it will revert to the landowner. The artist’s childhood in this house comprises the story, a patchwork of games played (including roller skating on the roof), mild deprivation (little meat, but always food) and the distant-seeming war (first-person Eddy refers to Japan as the enemy but doesn’t explain). Eddy feels safe in Baba’s house, as do the other families sheltering there. The episodic text rambles; some illustrations are casual and chaotic. Others are magnificent. Young uses myriad textures, including crinkly paper and woven reed paper. Collaged family silhouettes feature tenderly sketched faces. Old photos and bits of painted collage glow on dark pages. Miniscule cut-out people populate fold-out drawings and complex, three-dimensional–looking collages of the house. Those wanting historical or cultural background will need supplements, though.
Sophisticated, inventive art invites close viewings for patient readers in this unusual family story. (foreword, time line, author’s note) (Picture book/memoir. 7-12)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-07628-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
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