Parents will enjoy this book’s gentle tone and brevity, while children will like zooming along with this dragon before...
A simple read-aloud picture book about a boy and his dragon.
Hovaguimian (Deep in the Woods, 2011) uses simple, rhyming text in this bedtime read. The book is similar to the classic Goodnight, Moon (it even includes a final illustration that bears a striking resemblance to the window on the cover of that book) but incorporates the interesting addition of a big green dragon as the narrator. The friendly dragon describes his and young Henry’s nighttime practice of flying through the house, out into the world and up into the sky before returning safely to bed. The text is brief, and most pages contain no more than a short sentence. Liotta’s bright watercolor illustrations accompany the text, showing the dragon, Henry and the different sights (a cat, peas, the starry sky) the pair sees on their travels. The illustrations use an appealing free-form style, though the visible pencil sketch lines sometimes create an amateurish effect. Rhymes are sometimes nonsensical: “Over the bed of Fred / Over the sink, / over the ink, / over Dorsey / the horsey.” The nonsense rhymes don’t seem to fit the book, which has a soothing rather than silly tone. While this is a classic bedtime story, it’s worth pointing out that Henry and the dragon’s nightly excursions occur after the pair has gone to sleep, suggesting they’ve gotten out of bed in the night or, more likely, are dreaming about their nightly flights. Children will likely allow the illustrations to fuel their own imaginative dragon dreams.
Parents will enjoy this book’s gentle tone and brevity, while children will like zooming along with this dragon before falling asleep.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-1492981961
Page Count: 32
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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