Some familiar tales and some that are less so make up this elegantly designed and produced collection with Scottish roots and branches.
The volume sits nice and flat when opened, the type is large and clear, and the soft, evocative pictures range from full double-page spreads to tiny, exquisite images around the page numbers (a tuft of grass, a sprig of berries and a turnip, among other designs). Each of the 11 stories opens with a page of muted color on the left on which some lines from the coming tale are inscribed in a paler version of the hue. On the right, the name of the tale and a brief description of its source are framed in an image that carries and echoes through the pages. “The Wee Bannock” recalls “The Gingerbread Man,” and “Whuppity Stourie” brings to mind “Rumpelstiltskin,” but the rhythms and much of the detail reflect their Scottish sources. There’s a lovely, brief story from Sir Walter Scott, “The Goshawk and the Brave Lady,” that touches on the enmity between England and Scotland and in which the heroine rescues herself for her own true love. Breslin supplies a selkie story. Most of the Scots words are clear in context, but there is a strikingly informative glossary as well.
A genuinely beautiful collection that begs to be read aloud—or told—again and again. (Folk tales. 7-12)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8631-5907-7
Page Count: 158
Publisher: Floris
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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This genuinely clever math book uses rhyming couplets and riddles, as well as visual cues to help the reader find new ways to group numbers for quick counting. It’s a return to number sets, with none of those boring parentheses and <>signs. Here the rhyme gives a clue to the new ways of grouping numbers. For example: “Mama mia, pizza pie, / How many mushrooms do you spy? / Please don’t count them, it’s too slow, / This hot pie was made to go! / Let me give you some advice, / Just do half and count it twice.” A quick look at the pizza, and the reader can see each slice has the same number of mushrooms. Count by threes for half the pie, and double it. Each rhyme is given a double-page spread. The extra-large, brightly colored images leap off the page but never distract from the author’s intent. Some riddles are very challenging, but the author provides all the solutions in the back. Once the reader has seen the answers, the strategy is obvious and can be applied to other situations. Great fun for math enthusiasts and creative thinkers, this might also teach adults some new tricks. A winning addition. (Nonfiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-439-21033-X
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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A compendium of paranormal doings, natural horrors, and eerie wonders worldwide and (in several senses) beyond.
Maladroit title aside (“…in Bed” would make more sense, cautionwise), this collection of hauntings, cryptids, natural and historical mysteries, and general titillation (“Vampire bats might be coming for you!”) offers a broad array of reasons to stay wide awake. Arranged in no discernible order the 60-plus entries include ghostly sightings in the White House and various castles, body-burrowing guinea worms, the Nazca lines of Peru, Mothman and Nessie, the hastily abandoned city of Pripyat (which, thanks to the Chernobyl disaster, may be habitable again…in 24,000 years), monarch-butterfly migrations, and diverse rains of fish, frogs, fireballs, and unidentified slime. Each is presented in a busy whirl of narrative blocks, photos, graphics, side comments, and arbitrary “Fright-O-Meter” ratings (Paris’ “Creepy Catacombs” earn just a “4” out of 10 and black holes a “3,” but the aforementioned aerial amphibians a full “10”). The headers tend toward the lurid: “Jelly From Space,” “Zombie Ants,” “Mongolian Death Worm.” Claybourne sprinkles multiple-choice pop quizzes throughout for changes of pace.
A rich source of terrors both real and manufactured, equally effective in broad daylight or beneath the bedcovers. (Nonfiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4263-2841-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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