A celebration of winter and competition that will likely appeal to children who’ve dreamed of Olympic glory—or of a big,...
Lapid’s debut picture book puts a wintry spin on an eternal, favorite childhood dream: Olympic glory.
Snowman Paul wants to try out for the Winter Olympics, but his human friend Dan says that he’s too old. Paul boards a bus and heads to the Winter Olympics anyway. “What could I do?” Dan asks as he tags along to watch his “swell-headed-pile-of-snow” pal compete. The story flows in simple verse and intuitive rhymes: “I knew my Paul was very clever, / Perhaps the smartest snowman ever.” The dynamic, full-spread illustrations of Paul’s winter sporting events and the pacing of the story will grab and keep young children’s attention. The illustrations are more than just pretty pictures: the subtle shades of blue and gray in the snow droplets make the action scenes look lifelike and energetic, as if the snow is spilling across the pages. They complement the story, sweeping readers along as Paul seeks his Olympic dream. One single sentence is broken across eight pages of Olympic action: “Curling, / Snowboard, / The luge-run, / Guess who, each time, was / Number One?” To Dan’s surprise, Paul stacks up gold medals like Michael Phelps. But this is no simple follow-your-dreams book—the mood is triumphant only until Dan suspects Paul might be cheating. At first Paul sulks and pouts. “ ‘No way,’ snapped Paul. ‘That isn’t true!’ ” At last, he and Dan look for a way to make things right. Instead of an overdone morality lesson, this tale gently criticizes the extreme culture of winning and cheating, as well as temperamental professional athletes. Unfortunately, even though the story is set at the Olympics, the premier intercultural sporting event in the world, it doesn’t include an illustration of a single person who’s clearly from another country, and almost every person in the book appears to be white. As a result, the book misses the chance to add some genuine diversity.
A celebration of winter and competition that will likely appeal to children who’ve dreamed of Olympic glory—or of a big, friendly snowman coming to life.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9973899-2-0
Page Count: 46
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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