A nearly wordless tale, billed as “Level One” but probably with a more natural audience among teens or adults, centers on a long chase after a fugitive broken heart.
The departure of her best friend in a rocket ship leaves Penelope—depicted in the geometrical, silkscreen-style art with a human body and the head and tail of a fox—sitting beside the sea with her cracked heart in her lap. When that heart slips into the water and is carried away by dolphins, birds, a paper airplane and other agents, she pursues it, picking up a chicken-headed, cartwheeling companion she has met along the way. Penelope finds it at last in a “garden of lost things” but then sacrifices it to rescue her new friend from a toothy monster. In return, her new friend presents her with an egg that cracks open in the final scene to reveal an unmarked replacement heart. Sound effects and short lines of dialogue in the large sequential panels won’t help younger readers make sense of either the characters or the sketchy storyline. A metaphorical journey toward healing from traumatic loss inspired, writes Rowe, by the death of her cat—not, as the cover protests, a “first comic for brand-new readers!” (Graphic picture book. 13 & up)
Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-9351-7959-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: TOON/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
The dream phantasms of a high-spirited narrator intersect, even crowd, reality, but the stream-of-consciousness text makes for a rambling, radically personal tale. Playful images of a stuffed lion, trampoline, purple shoes, and a cat named Pine-Cone take hold in a young girl’s imagination, despite her “old” mother who makes her go to bed when she’d rather “stay up early” and a big sister with a cranky disposition. At home, she likes counting flea bites and pretending to be a worm, but is afraid of the dark and going to Grade One. The second half of the book takes off in a separate first-day-of school direction. Wild dreams precede the big day, which includes bullies on the playground and instant friend Chelsea. The childlike articulations of the text are endearing, but not quite of universal interest, and don’t add up to a compelling story; children may more readily warm to Gay’s illustrations, which include a dreamlike flying cat, a menacing hot dog, and an uproarious stuffed toy looming over everyday domestic scenes. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: Feb. 15, 1999
ISBN: 1-55143-107-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
Opening episodes of a comic-book series created by an American teacher in Japan take a leap into chapter-book format, with only partial success. Resembling—in occasional illustrations—a button-eyed, juvenile Olive Oyl, Akiko, 10, is persuaded by a pair of aliens named Bip and Bop to climb out her high-rise bedroom’s window for a trip to M&M-shaped Planet Smoo, where Prince Fropstoppit has been kidnapped by widely feared villainness Alia Rellaport. Along with an assortment of contentious sidekicks, including brainy Mr. Beeba, Akiko battles Sky Pirates and video-game-style monsters in prolonged scenes of cartoony violence, displaying resilience, courage, and leadership ability, but not getting very far in her rescue attempt; in fact, the story cuts off so abruptly, with so little of the quest completed, and at a lull in the action to boot, that readers expecting a self-contained (forget complete) story are likely to feel cheated. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-32724-2
Page Count: 162
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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