The view is lovely, but it is Fiona’s Homeric voyage through the city that will find readers charged with their own...
A blend of photos and animated elements showcases Poor’s story of a girl pursuing a windblown scarf, much as a boy did a red balloon, and experiencing a great city in the process.
A mischievous wind with inspired ulterior motives snatches a girl’s scarf during a foggy day in San Francisco when it hears her complain that she is bored. As a silent messenger, it takes her on a tour of her great city and introduces her to some of its citizens: a pelican that cares for a lighthouse, one of the city’s fabled parrot escapees, sea lions and a red crab that lives under a pier. They are an amiable crew who are familiar with the wind’s curious behavior by now, and each pressures Fiona on to the next stop, which ends with a tattered rope ladder leading through the fog above to a grand, panoptical view. The fog is everywhere here, as in San Francisco it ought to be, lending mystery to the story’s progression as it gets soupier and soupier. The girl’s movement through the city precincts is peaceful but absorbing, and the end is quietly satisfying. The story’s backgrounds are actual photos of the city, the animated elements infusing them with lightness and a trompe l’oeil quality.
The view is lovely, but it is Fiona’s Homeric voyage through the city that will find readers charged with their own wanderlust. (Requires iOS 7 and above.) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: William Poor
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
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