Worth’s shrewd economy and sharp observations characterize 23 poems illustrated with Jenkins’s familiar paper collages. Poems like “Kangaroo” are accessible to young children: “The trouble is, / Once born, there’s / No going back—” save for kangaroo babies, “who can / . . . by / A simple somersault / Return headfirst / To the delectable / Pocket of the dark.” Others are disarmingly sophisticated. “Snake” plumbs its subject’s coloration and movement for images: “Mottled / Mosaic / Of pebbles / Tumbled / Smoothly along, / Their slender / Landslide / Filing / Down / The narrow / Channel / Grooved by / The guiding / Head. . . . ” Jenkins’s canny, occasionally self-referential exploitation of paper to portray animal characteristics emerges in whale’s watery batik, elephant’s wrinkled hide and jellyfish’s transparent tentacles. Small trim size (22 centimeters square) renders the gutter somewhat intrusive in a few spreads, and while the image of “Wasp” practically achieves a third dimension, “Snake” seems correspondingly flat. The subject of “Bear” is its eye, “Like a fierce / Furious / Bee,” but Jenkins depicts limpid orbs. Lacking supporting material about the animals, the poet (who died in 1994) or artist, this package doesn’t soar with the poems, but just to have anything available by Worth is worth noting. (Picture book/poetry. 5-12)
Pub Date: April 2, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-374-38057-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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Renowned Latin American writer Alvarez has created another story about cultural identity, but this time the primary character is 11-year-old Miguel Guzmán.
When Tía Lola arrives to help the family, Miguel and his hermana, Juanita, have just moved from New York City to Vermont with their recently divorced mother. The last thing Miguel wants, as he's trying to fit into a predominantly white community, is a flamboyant aunt who doesn't speak a word of English. Tía Lola, however, knows a language that defies words; she quickly charms and befriends all the neighbors. She can also cook exotic food, dance (anywhere, anytime), plan fun parties, and tell enchanting stories. Eventually, Tía Lola and the children swap English and Spanish ejercicios, but the true lesson is "mutual understanding." Peppered with Spanish words and phrases, Alvarez makes the reader as much a part of the "language" lessons as the characters. This story seamlessly weaves two culturaswhile letting each remain intact, just as Miguel is learning to do with his own life. Like all good stories, this one incorporates a lesson just subtle enough that readers will forget they're being taught, but in the end will understand themselves, and others, a little better, regardless of la lengua nativa—the mother tongue.
Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-80215-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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