A stirring and thought-provoking reflection on the essential part stories play in making us human.
A wordless black-and-white tale detailing the journey of a Pleistocene family.
Opening with six double-page graphite sketches of a bison hunt that precedes the title page—a cinematic touch that will have kids mesmerized from the get-go—this story of prehistoric people encourages readers to look closely, notice details, and imagine coexisting with saber-toothed cats and mastodons. Some animals (apelike creatures) are helpful companions of the hominids, some (primarily herbivores) live peaceably with them, while others see them as food. As the family travels, the youngest children, naked even in the snow, climb trees and play, while their older sister, who wears animal furs like the adults, examines footprints and looks out for predators. In their search for a cave home, they encounter many animals, including a gigantic bearlike creature that becomes the rug in their cave after they kill it. When the family leaves the girl alone inside the cave, she begins to draw on the stone walls with a charred stick, and by the time they return, she has covered the cave walls with an extensive pictorial story of their journey. Yockteng makes meticulous use of shading and ramps up the drama through thrilling use of scale that sees this intrepid family dwarfed by mountains, trees, and animals. This gorgeously illustrated work will encourage young readers to speculate about the joys, dangers, and complex family dynamics of the hominids of the Pleistocene. Characters have gray-tinged skin. Backmatter with more information on the Pleistocene is translated from Spanish. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A stirring and thought-provoking reflection on the essential part stories play in making us human. (Picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: May 9, 2023
ISBN: 9781778400605
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Greystone Kids
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Celebrated collaborators deliver another thoughtful delight, revealing how “making marks” links us across time and space.
The light-skinned, redheaded narrator journeys alone as flight attendants supply snacks to diverse, interspecies passengers. The kid muses, “Sometimes they ask me, ‘Why are you always going to the farthest planet?’ ”The response comes after the traveler hurtles through the solar system, lands, and levitates up to the platform where a welcoming grandmother waits: “Because it’s worth it / to cross one universe / to explore another.” Indeed, child and grandmother enter an egg-shaped, clear-domed orb and fly over a teeming savanna and a towering waterfall before disembarking, donning headlamps, and entering a cave. Inside, the pair marvel at a human handprint and ancient paintings of animals including horses, bison, and horned rhinoceroses. Yockteng’s skilled, vigorously shaded pictures suggest references to images found in Lascaux and Chauvet Cave in France. As the holiday winds down, grandmother gives the protagonist some colored pencils that had belonged to grandfather generations back. (She appears to chuckle over a nude portrait of her younger self.) The pencils “were good for making marks on paper. She gave me that too.” The child draws during the return trip, documenting the visit and sights along the journey home. “Because what I could see was infinity.” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9.8-by-19.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 85% of actual size.)
Celebrated collaborators deliver another thoughtful delight, revealing how “making marks” links us across time and space. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77306-172-6
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
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