A glimpse into Soviet children’s-book illustration; likely of more interest to scholars than to children.
Hot off the American presses comes this translated collection of three illustrated texts from the 1920s golden age of Soviet children’s-book publishing.
The titular text, by Mayakovsky, stands as the first chapter in this collection of tales, all translated by Ostashevsky. It tells the story of a little boy who wants a horse from a toyshop. The shop clerk tells him and his father, “No way, / We’re all out of horses today. / Still, / a horse of any color can / Be made by / a master artisan.” They then go to six different workers to get materials and specific expertise for building the toy horse. This story, like the other two in the book (Mandelstam’s “Two Trams” and Kharms’ “Play”), centers on themes of industry, modernity, and the dignity of work. In all cases, the art far outshines the text, which has a stilted sound, possibly due to poetics lost in translation. But pictures by Popova, Ender, and Konashevich, respectively, are wondrous to behold in their own right and as precursors to mid-20th-century Western picture-book art. Popova’s human figures are big, burly examples of Soviet manhood; their tools and the gathering team appear in brightly colored squares that offset their bulk. Ender’s gray, black, red, and blue illustrations are almost abstract in their depictions of the titular trams and their tracks. Konashevich’s figures are fluid and likely the most conventional-looking for modern American audiences.
A glimpse into Soviet children’s-book illustration; likely of more interest to scholars than to children. (Picture book. 6 & up)Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68137-092-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
A beautiful, powerful reflection on a tragic history.
In spare verse, Lowry reflects on moments in her childhood, including the bombings of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.
When she was a child, Lowry played at Waikiki Beach with her grandmother while her father filmed. In the old home movie, the USS Arizona appears through the mist on the horizon. Looking back at her childhood in Hawaii and then Japan, Lowry reflects on the bombings that began and ended a war and how they affected and connected everyone involved. In Part 1, she shares the lives and actions of sailors at Pearl Harbor. Part 2 is stories of civilians in Hiroshima affected by the bombing. Part 3 presents her own experience as an American in Japan shortly after the war ended. The poems bring the haunting human scale of war to the forefront, like the Christmas cards a sailor sent days before he died or the 4-year-old who was buried with his red tricycle after Hiroshima. All the personal stories—of sailors, civilians, and Lowry herself—are grounding. There is heartbreak and hope, reminding readers to reflect on the past to create a more peaceful future. Lowry uses a variety of poetry styles, identifying some, such as triolet and haiku. Pak’s graphite illustrations are like still shots of history, adding to the emotion and somber feeling. He includes some sailors of color among the mostly white U.S. forces; Lowry is white.
A beautiful, powerful reflection on a tragic history. (author’s note, bibliography) (Memoir/poetry. 10-14)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-12940-0
Page Count: 80
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
PROFILES
Affecting and hopeful.
A stray dog finds her destiny amid the chaos of a Southern California wildfire.
Wombat is a small dog with stubby legs and “silly ears / that look like furry cookies”—almost impossibly cute in Bricking’s occasional pencil-style vignettes. She’s mastered the art of survival, so when a mysterious internal voice prods her to go toward the fire, she resists. “The wrong way is the right way. / The right way is the wrong way,” the voice insists. When she tells fellow stray Silas about it, he tells Wombat she’s a “destiny dog,” bound to “find their person / before their person / can find them.” Convinced, she decides to follow the mysterious instructions. Meanwhile, Henry, a boy who’s leery of dogs, loves the bats at the wildlife rehabilitation center where Mama Ro, a veterinarian, works; his Mama J is a librarian. Henry and Barnabas, a fruit bat at the center, are both uprooted by the fire, and their paths converge with Wombat’s at an emergency shelter. The third-person perspective shifts from character to character in clusters of free-verse poems that fully immerse readers in each one’s experiences in turn. This extra-concentrated delivery of Applegate’s typically spare writing proves effective, balancing terror and sadness with heart and humor. Henry has light brown skin, Mama Ro has curly black hair and brown skin, and Mama J presents white.
Affecting and hopeful. (Verse fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780063221178
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Storytide/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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