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THE THUNDER EGG

Name: THE THUNDER EGG
Author: Tim J. Myers
ISBN: 978-1-937786-39-7

by Tim J. Myers ; illustrated by Winfield Coleman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 7, 2015

Well-meaning but flawed.

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An original tale based in folklore about a Native American girl’s willingness to help her people through the power of a mysterious stone.

Set before horses were introduced to the Cheyennes, here is the story of Stands-by-Herself, a girl who lives with her grandmother and “her people on the great plains.” True to her name, she is a solitary child, and the other children constantly tease her, causing her to wish she could “fly away with the ducks.” In an attempt to soothe the girl, her grandmother references the Creator, assuring her that someday she will find the power to do good. Soon she comes across the titular artifact, which will send her down the foreshadowed path soon enough, as her people, come summer, are hungry, undergoing drought and sickness. The author builds an affecting story that centers on his Native American protagonist and her love for her people, though he never names that people within it. The soft, pastel-hued watercolor illustrations evoke the pre-Colonial Plains and its peoples; unusually detailed notes provide further information in the backmatter. In his afterword, Myers contextualizes his position as an outsider, his interest in the story, and its fictional content. Although Myers’ research is evident, his omission of a specific tribe’s and Creator’s names within the story are problematic, as they reinforce a limited and monolithic view of Native Americans.

Well-meaning but flawed. (bibliography) (Picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: July 7, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-937786-39-7

Page Count: 28

Publisher: Wisdom Tales

Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
YAO BAI AND THE EGG PIRATES
by Tim J. Myers ; illustrated by Bonnie Pang

- BOOK REVIEW
FULL OF EMPTY
by Tim J. Myers & M.P. Myers ; illustrated by Rebecca Sorge

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THE ADVENTURES OF HENRY WHISKERS

From the Adventures of Henry Whiskers series , Vol. 1

by Gigi Priebe ; illustrated by Daniel Duncan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 3, 2017

Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.

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The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.

In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).

Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)

Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Aladdin

Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION | CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION

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ELIZABETH STARTED ALL THE TROUBLE

by Doreen Rappaport ; illustrated by Matt Faulkner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 2016

Rappaport makes this long struggle palpable and relevant, while Faulkner adds a winning mix of gravitas and high spirits.

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Rappaport examines the salient successes and raw setbacks along the 144-year-long road between the nation’s birth and women’s suffrage.

This lively yet forthright narrative pivots on a reality that should startle modern kids: women’s right to vote was only achieved in 1920, 72 years after Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Indeed, time’s passage figures as a textual motif, connecting across decades such determined women as Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone. They spoke tirelessly, marched, organized, and got arrested. Rappaport includes events such as 1913’s Women’s Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C., but doesn’t shy from divisive periods like the Civil War. Faulkner’s meticulously researched gouache-and-ink illustrations often infuse scenes with humor by playing with size and perspective. As Stanton and Lucretia Mott sail into London in 1840 for the World Anti-Slavery Conference, Faulkner depicts the two women as giants on the ship’s upper deck. On the opposite page, as they learn they’ll be barred as delegates, they’re painted in miniature, dwarfed yet unflappable beneath a gallery full of disapproving men. A final double-page spread mingles such modern stars as Shirley Chisholm and Sonia Sotomayor amid the historical leaders.

Rappaport makes this long struggle palpable and relevant, while Faulkner adds a winning mix of gravitas and high spirits. (biographical thumbnails, chronology, sources, websites, further reading, author’s note) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)