A nicely etched story of doing the right thing in a trying world.
Young Nick outfoxes a greedy knight as well as a company of thieves to rescue his oppressed medieval village.
The setting here is an age-worn town, sometime in the Middle Ages, with a Central European feel, venerable but struggling under the boot of a bloated, cruel tyrant. Nick has been forced into servitude at Sir Nestor the Nasty’s castle because his mother is in debt to the knight. Nestor has more than he will ever have need, but that’s the point: Greed breeds greed. All day long, it’s chop wood, fetch water, do the dishes, and then do it again. Nick connives to make his escape and stumbles into the knight’s treasury in the process. He grabs one glowing coin and swings to freedom, only to land in the hands of a band of robbers who are only too happy to have someone to chop their wood, fetch water, and do the dishes. But Nick plays on their greed and soon enough has them swimming in the moat with Nestor’s alligators, right along with Nestor, as he puts the golden coin to good work. On one level, the story is simple fun, as are the illustrations, but scratch it just a little and it has much to say about the universality of greed and how wealth finds meaning when it is put to use for the common good.
A nicely etched story of doing the right thing in a trying world. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4091-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As Captain Awesome would say, this kid is “MI-TEE!” (Fiction. 5-8)
The town of Sunnyview got a little bit safer when 8-year-old Eugene McGillicudy moved in.
Just like his comic-book mentor, Super Dude, Eugene, aka Captain Awesome, is on a one-man mission is to save the world from supervillains, like the nefarious “Queen Stinkypants from Planet Baby.” Just as Eugene suspected, plenty of new supervillains await him at Sunnyview Elementary. Are Meredith Mooney and the mind-reading Ms. Beasley secretly working together to try and force Eugene to reveal his secret identity? Will Principal Brick Foot succeed in throwing Captain Awesome into the “Dungeon of Detention?” Fortunately, Eugene isn’t forced to go it alone. Charlie Thomas Jones, fellow comic-book lover and Super Dude fan, stands ready and willing to help. When the class hamster goes missing, Captain Awesome must don his cape and, with the help of his new best friend, ride to the rescue. Kirby’s funny and engaging third-person narration and O’Connor’s hilarious illustrations make the book easily accessible and enormously appealing, particularly to readers who have recently graduated to chapter books. But it is the quirky, mischievous Eugene that really makes this book special. His energy and humor are contagious, and his dogged commitment to his superhero alter ego is enough to make anyone a believer.
As Captain Awesome would say, this kid is “MI-TEE!” (Fiction. 5-8)Pub Date: April 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4090-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Birdsong began her career as a teacher, and the book will find repeated use in the classroom.
A multicultural girl-power manifesto featuring a feisty young girl who faces her day as a knight on an epic quest.
The unnamed narrator puts on her “armor” (a rainbow sweater) and fills her “treasure chest” (a backpack). Venturing forth to “explore new worlds,” she drives back “dragons” (neighborhood dogs on their walk), boards the “many-headed serpent” (her school bus, with schoolmates’ heads protruding from every window), and visits “the Mountain of Knowledge” (the school library) to “solve the mysteries of the unknown.” After standing up for her beliefs—by joining a classmate sitting alone in the cafeteria—the young girl returns home to rest in the lap of an older female relative, possibly a grandparent/primary caregiver, to prepare for the next day, when she can be “fierce again.” Birdsong’s repeated refrain—“I will be fierce!”—underlines the unambiguous message of this sassy picture book, and Chanani’s bold and energetic illustrations reinforce the text’s punchy, feminist-y declarations. They depict a joyously multiracial environment, consciously tackling stereotypes with an elderly, white, female bus driver and a groovy, Asian-presenting librarian with a green streak in her hair. The fierce protagonist herself has brown skin and fluffy, dark brown hair, and her caregiver also has brown skin.
Birdsong began her career as a teacher, and the book will find repeated use in the classroom. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29508-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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