This captivating fairy tale melds whimsy and faith; children will clamor to hear it read aloud.
A rambunctious little girl recruits three misfit dragons to solve the problems a castle faces each Jewish Sabbath in this children’s fantasy in verse.
An evil dragon once terrorized Castle Draconmere. The beast’s destruction was so unstoppable that the king asked Sir Benjamin to kill it, promising to give the castle to him in return. Sir Benjamin tricked the dragon with a sleep-inducing stew and slew it easily, and he, his wife, and their young daughter, Mindel, moved into the castle. But Castle Draconmere wasn’t ideal; every Sabbath, the family had to decide whether to leave the gate open or shut. Moving the gate would break the laws of the Sabbath itself. Leaving it open left them vulnerable to villains, because no guards could stay awake the duration of the night. Keeping it shut meant barring themselves from visitors. On top of this, the drafty castle blew out the candles early each Sabbath—and it’s forbidden to relight them. Finally, the pages of the sacred scrolls and books suddenly began to turn up wet and ruined with no clear culprit. Sir Benjamin warns Mindel that if they can’t find solutions to these problems, they must abandon Castle Draconmere. But Mindel desperately wants to stay. She stumbles upon three misfit dragons, each with traits that make them unsuitable for protecting anywhere but Castle Draconmere. Serpenfin was born with only fins and has trouble sleeping, making him the perfect guard for the moat. Pointilla is small, possessing the ability to shoot tiny, precise flames. She’s just the one to light the Sabbath candles. And Bibinfor yearns to watch over books, not jewels, creating the ultimate protector of the sacred tomes. Soon everyone has found a place and all is well—until the nasty dragon eels arrive. Debut author Michaels weaves an enchanting story that will enthrall young readers. Parents will delight in reading it aloud, finding an easy rhythm in the verse. Charming illustrations and carefully penned calligraphy add a visual element perfect for story time.
This captivating fairy tale melds whimsy and faith; children will clamor to hear it read aloud.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-941067-00-0
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Alcabal Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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