A wooden retelling of Perrault’s classic tale, with underwhelming movable parts.
Gurney embellishes the original plotline only by furnishing the Ogre with a back story (provided in a very small pasted-in booklet) and bestowing names on the kingdom and most of the characters. Her prose stumbles (“Puss pondered over [sic] the problem of Peter’s livelihood”), and her dialogue runs to stilted lines like, “We have seen your idea of work, Peter—it is to sit around all day playing your harmonica and idling.” Illustrator Kelley does his best to add plenty of visual panache, crafting painted scenes featuring a swashbuckling ginger puss plainly akin to the scene stealer from Shrek and cleverly manipulating a Disney-esque human cast. Such movable additions as a turn-able water wheel, a pull tab that makes Puss lick his chops after devouring the ogre and even a culminating pop-up wedding tableau are, at best, routine, and they often feel like afterthoughts, enhancing neither the art nor the story.
This ageless trickster tale has a nicely subversive message, but this rendition lacks the panache to carry it off. (Pop-up fairy tale. 8-10)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7641-6485-9
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Barron's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2011
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A playful introduction to bacteria, viruses, fungi, algae, archaea, and protozoa.
Readers are going to need a basic grounding in cytology from the start, as Gallagher drops such terms as “nucleus” and “organelles” into the discourse without defining them and rushes past plasmids without explaining what they are or do. Likewise, though she fits out all of the jelly-bean–like cells and microbes in her lighthearted illustrations with expressive faces—not to mention occasional limbs, fashion accessories, and hair—she rarely includes recognizable biological components. She’s not particularly systematic either, as she mentions four major components of the human immune system but goes on to describe only two. More usefully, along with frequent mentions of how ubiquitous microbes are, her main focus seems to be laying out microbial types and subtypes, from the five shape-related groups of bacteria to the even more ancient archaea (Crenarchaeota, Euryarchaeota, and Korarchaeota), and describing their individual distinctions and how they reproduce. Polysyllabic as some of this content is, the breezy presentation should impart to general students, as well as budding microbiologists, a nodding acquaintance with our single-celled neighbors and residents.
Scanty for a stand-alone guide but definitely a vocabulary enricher. (glossary) (Nonfiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63411-009-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Thunderstone Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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An illustrated profile of an ancient queen.
Seven hundred years ago, a 14-year-old girl named Goharshad married the powerful ruler Shah Rukh and became a queen. After moving to Herat, the stunning seat of her new husband’s empire, Goharshad dreamed of transforming her kingdom into something even more beautiful than it already was. For the rest of her reign, Goharshad funded and oversaw artistic projects ranging from the creation of a mosque to the construction of a library and a college intended to include women and girls. Goharshad persisted despite doubts about her decisions, creating a legacy that lasted until war and time destroyed her most impressive creations. This text-heavy book walks an uncertain line between fiction and nonfiction: Many passages that are presented as facts feel rooted in speculation, such as the musings of an “old man” who gathers the jeweled tiles that are all that remains of a building the queen constructed in Herat. Since the author provides no historical sources, it is hard to say what genre this is meant to be. The unnecessarily flowery language—which is, equally unnecessarily, printed in a stylized typeface—and the highly embellished illustrations are troubling and exoticizing. Furthermore, the tragic tone of the final pages renders this story one of loss, leaving readers with a deficit perspective of a troubled region with a rich and vibrant past. A classroom guide on the publisher's website provides extension activities but no further documentation for the story itself.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-949528-97-8
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Yali Books
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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