A must.
Text that sings like poetry narrates a gorgeous re-envisioning of “Thumbelina.”
Lina’s mother discovers her “in a silken flower / in a garden of wishes.” She blesses her new daughter, and she worries, “for many dangers wait upon a girl / no bigger than a thumb.” This piece shares Hans Christian Andersen’s plot but not its old themes of marriage and Thumbelina’s prettiness, powerlessness and self-sacrifice. Instead, with lyrical elegance, Krishnaswami gives Lina agency. When a frog traps her, Lina sings: “Wind-swish, bird-flutter, / fish-bubble and all, / come to me now, / come when I call.” Lina shows these fish “how to snip and where to chew, / and soon they cut the leaf free of its stem, / so it floated like a raft.” When weeds and bugs mire her leaf-raft, tenacious Lina “kicked and paddled with all her might, / until her lily pad pulled free.” Left-hand pages feature text on white background; right-hand pages have exquisite, full-bleed paintings in acrylic and tissue. Using sumptuous colors, luscious paint texture, patterns, smudges and delicate lines, Khosravi places characters in arresting, abstract compositions that recall Marc Chagall. “[B]irdsong and lonely fear” are part of Lina’s journey, alongside discovery and strength—and her mother, reappearing in “the map of [Lina’s] own life / spread out like a carpet” before Lina’s next departure.
A must. (author’s note, publisher’s note) (Picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: March 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-55498-324-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
First of a tasty if not immediately nourishing new series.
When Dr. Bunsen, Gabe, Laura, and Cesar's mad-scientist neighbor, tries out his growth machine on Gabe's plastic animal toys, there's an unexpected result—they come to life.
Second-grade whiz kids Gabriel Martinez, Laura Reyes, and Cesar Moreno meet their strange neighbor while fundraising for a science-club field trip. Known to their classmates as “the Data Set,” they each have individual passions: Gabe loves animals; Laura loves to tinker and invent; Cesar loves to read and eat. There’s room for all these activities in their well-equipped treehouse. Together, their fantastic adventures will be the stuff of four titles scheduled for 2016 and aimed directly at first- and second-graders already devouring books. This episode introduces the characters, sets up the problem (the cute but rapidly growing baby animals), and finds a solution (sneak them into the zoo) in 126 fast-paced pages written with plenty of dialogue and copiously illustrated with appealing drawings. With these Latino protagonists—Cesar has dark skin and curly hair, while Laura and Gabe have lighter skin and straight hair—and a STEM-infused plot, this would seem to have been made to order for today’s elementary school students. While the emphasis is far more on plot than STEM, the kid-friendly fantasy should captivate readers, who will certainly want to gobble up the next installment. (Tantalizingly, the opening pages are included.)
First of a tasty if not immediately nourishing new series. (Adventure. 5-8)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5729-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Good-hearted fun—great for fans of Kit Feeny and Babymouse.
It’s a Bigfeet family reunion!
Everyone’s favorite frosty, furry cryptid, the yeti, actually has a name: Blizz Richards. From his supersecret HQ in Nepal he keeps in touch with his fellow cryptids, all of whom have sworn an oath to keep themselves hidden. That’s not always easy, especially when there are cryptozoologists, like the nasty (but bumbling) George Vanquist, who are always trying to expose the secretive creatures. Vanquist got a picture of Blizz’s cousin Brian near his home in British Columbia, causing the mortified Brian to disappear entirely. When Blizz receives an invitation to a Bigfeet family reunion in Canada, he calls his buddies Alexander (one of Santa’s elves), Gunthar (a goblin) and Frank the Arctic fox to help him get ready. When they arrive in Canada, Brian is still nowhere to be seen. Can Blizz and his skunk ape and other sasquatch cousins find Brian, have the reunion and evade Vanquist? If anyone can, the Bigfeet clan can. Illustrator Sherry’s first volume in the Yeti Files is a fast and funny graphic-prose tale full of labeled pictures and comic-style panels. Those just starting chapter books may have some trouble with a few big words, but they’ll enjoy the big friendly monsters and immediately ask for the next tale—which looks to be about the Loch Ness monster.
Good-hearted fun—great for fans of Kit Feeny and Babymouse. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-55617-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
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