Dedicated to Ungerer’s adopted Ireland and its people, this is a poignant, magical gift for us all.
The renowned Ungerer presents an atmospheric, folkloric adventure celebrating the childhood imagination’s ability to transform fear.
Finn, Cara and their parents farm traditionally along the coast, raising food, fishing, cutting peat and spinning wool. Their father builds his children a rowboat (called a curragh), admonishing them to avoid eerie Fog Island. While the siblings are out exploring, an enveloping fog and strong currents necessitate an emergency landing on the island. Climbing steps up spooky rock cliffs, they encounter the Fog Man, his hair and beard cascading to his ankles. After showing them how he uses valves, the Earth’s magma and seawater to make fog, he provides songs, seafood stew and a good night’s rest. Next morning, though they wake in a ruined room with no sign of the Fog Man, bowls of hot stew await them. Finn and Cara’s mysterious, shared experiences on Fog Island belie their neighbors’ skepticism, and when, weeks later, Cara finds a very long hair in her soup, they giggle knowingly. Ungerer’s pictures are cloaked in deliberate, misty grays and browns, accented with blue-green and red. Details abound, including sly ones: Might that be the author, fiddling at the pub, just below a mysterious, flowing mane of hair? The publisher’s ever-lovely bookmaking is evidenced in the creamy stock, crisp typography and embossed boards.
Dedicated to Ungerer’s adopted Ireland and its people, this is a poignant, magical gift for us all. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7148-6535-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Phaidon
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
A deceptively subtle thought-provoker for preschoolers.
Four round and rubbery cartoon African animals—a wild dog, a warthog, a lion, and an elephant—find what seems to be a hole in the wall.
Round-eyed with excitement, each runs back to its fellows to report that the previous observer was wrong about what it observed. The dog finds the hole first: he sees a dog in it. The warthog sees a warthog, and so on. Alert children will catch on to this from the first image. (Spoiler alert: it’s a mirror.) At the end, when all four buddies (only the elephant is tagged as female) realize they are all correct and view themselves together in the mirror, “Everyone was happy because everyone was right!” The type is large and bold and uses color to highlight various words; all the colors have a smooth and slick feel to them. The story is based on a Mark Twain fable, which is reproduced in all of its fustian glory in three pages of text at the end. The moral of that tale is actually somewhat different from Wilhelm’s version and will prepare young readers for deconstructionist literary criticism in their later years, but the whole makes a fairly good read-aloud with very few words.
A deceptively subtle thought-provoker for preschoolers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3535-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
Counting has never been so mysterious or so much fun
Pun fun reigns over this fast-paced whodunit.
Private I of the Al F. Bet agency is at his desk when a frantic 6 races in. 7 is “after me,” declares the distressed numeral. Answers Private I: “Well, technically, he’s always after you.” The detective, narrating his caper noir-style, dons his fedora and follows the numbers. The case is solved when he upends the evidence and proclaims that 6 is really 9. This is followed by very humorous and slightly philosophical analysis of numerical significances. Is being in “seventh heaven” better than having “NINE lives!” or not? Lazar’s text is straight out of the classic detective genre, as are MacDonald’s illustrations, which are a mix of colored pencil, watercolor, and 19th-century wood type, all composed in Photoshop. The scenes are clearly set in an old-time Manhattan, with the office, streets, and harbor reimagining movie sets straight out of the 1930s and ’40s, albeit colorized. The oversized letters and numerals all have very entertaining faces and tiny protruding arms and legs that convey constant movement. The name of the detective agency is an adventure in pronunciation. Is it the English word “alphabet” or the Hebrew words for alphabet: “alef bet”?
Counting has never been so mysterious or so much fun . (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-1779-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
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