This retelling of an ages-old Japanese tale relates the woes of a rambunctious young raccoon-dog named Yoshi, a mischievous tanuki shapeshifter. Impetuous and distractible, Yoshi decides to play an ambitious trick, but he forgets: If you turn yourself into a teapot, you may have to take some heat! In his effort to escape the farmwife’s fire, his furry legs sprout from his teapot-belly and off he runs, reviled by monks who mistake him, half-transformed, for a demon. Their abbot orders him locked away, and Yoshi languishes, a curiosity, until the vision and kindness of the Emperor’s grandson releases him, and he returns to his family, humbled and somewhat wiser. McGuire’s naïve acrylic illustrations of anthropomorphized animals and sweeping Japanese vistas are an amusing accompaniment to this, the second of Myers’s well-meant but rather tame tanuki tales. (author’s note) (Picture book/folktale. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-7614-5295-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007
Categories: CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION
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A trite, knock-off sequel to Jumanji (1981). The “Jumanji” box distracts Walter Budwing away from beating up on his little brother Danny, but it’s Danny who discovers the Zathura board inside—and in no time, Earth is far behind, a meteor has smashed through the roof, and a reptilian Zyborg pirate is crawling through the hole. Each throw of the dice brings an ominous new development, portrayed in grainy, penciled freeze frames featuring sculptured-looking figures in constricted, almost claustrophobic settings. The angles of view are, as always, wonderfully dramatic, but not only is much of the finer detail that contributed to Jumanji’s astonishing realism missing, the spectacular damage being done to the Budwings’ house as the game progresses is, by and large, only glimpsed around the picture edges. Naturally, having had his bacon repeatedly saved by his younger sibling’s quick thinking, once Walter falls through a black hole to a time preceding the game’s start, his attitude toward Danny undergoes a sudden, radical transformation. Van Allsburg’s imagination usually soars right along with his accomplished art—but here, both are just running in place. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2002
ISBN: 0-618-25396-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Action, clever humor, delightful illustrations and expectation-defying secret identities—when does the next one come out?
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Perfect Princess Magnolia has a secret—her alter ego is the Princess in Black, a superhero figure who protects the kingdom!
When nosy Duchess Wigtower unexpectedly drops by Princess Magnolia’s castle, Magnolia must protect her secret identity from the duchess’s prying. But then Magnolia’s monster alarm, a glitter-stone ring, goes off. She must save the day, leaving the duchess unattended in her castle. After a costume change, the Princess in Black joins her steed, Blacky (public identity: Frimplepants the unicorn), to protect Duff the goat boy and his goats from a shaggy, blue, goat-eating monster. When the monster refuses to see reason, Magnolia fights him, using special moves like the “Sparkle Slam” and the “Twinkle Twinkle Little Smash.” The rounded, cartoony illustrations featuring chubby characters keep the fight sequence soft and comical. Watching the fight, Duff notices suspicious similarities between the Princess in Black and Magnolia—quickly dismissed as “a silly idea”—much like the duchess’s dismissal of some discovered black stockings as being simply dirty, as “princesses don’t wear black.” The gently ironic text will amuse readers (including adults reading the book aloud). The large print and illustrations expand the book to a longish-yet-manageable length, giving newly independent readers a sense of accomplishment. The ending hints at another hero, the Goat Avenger.
Action, clever humor, delightful illustrations and expectation-defying secret identities—when does the next one come out? (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6510-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION
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