dragonbitebooks's reviews
1040 reviews

First published on my blog, Nine Pages.

This book caught my attention early in the month, but only late this month did I bring it out for story time. This penguin is grumpy, and he doesn’t know why. He strips off his clothes piece by piece, thinking that one less piece will make him feel less grumpy, but it’s no good, even when he’s down to just his underpants. So he takes off his underpants, takes a deep breath, counts to three, and dives into the bathtub, where at last he is able to wash off the last of his grumpiness by splashing and making a bubble beard. He puts on his favorite clothes and feels even better and goes to sleep.

This would be a great book for little ones: bedtime, bath time, clothes primer, a reassurance that sometimes you get grumpy without any reason and that’s okay. Plus, it’s hard to feel grumpy while this penguin pulls off with his beak his very colorful clothes; this penguin dresses only a bit more conservatively than Dobby the house-elf.

I worried a little about showing the penguin sans clothes, but none of the parents said anything—and it’s more natural—isn’t it?—to see a penguin without clothes than in them, so I didn’t feel as if I was showing the kids anything too racy.

Originally published on my blog, Nine Pages.

This is a book that won’t come out of its hole but once a year—and that’s sort of shame. It’s a clever, funny little book, about a groundhog who feels underappreciated so he leaves on an unplanned vacation right before his big day, leaving the town in a lurch and holding auditions for someone to replace him. He just wants the media to ask him about something other than the weather—really, he wants to be asked about himself, the personal questions, like what movies he likes and how he likes his pizza. There’s an African American female mayor and the potential for a sequel as the groundhog runs away with the Easter Bunny at the end. This is though I think the sort of picture book that gets a larger laugh from adults than it does from the kids.

Originally published on my blog, Nine Pages.

This is a wonderfully fun and unique Christmas book. A young ninja wants to have a snowball fight, but none of his friends will join him because they have to practice to be good ninjas to impress Santa. The first ninja, Yukio, blames Santa, and when he hears Santa arrive, he rings the alarm bell and calls “intruder!” The ninjas pour out of the dojo and drive-off the red-clad intruder, who at one point appears as a samurai with a snowman army. It is only after Samurai Santa has been driven away that Yukio realizes that because of his actions, his friends will have no presents from Santa, but presents are under the tree and there’s a note for Yukio from Santa, saying that he hopes that Yukio enjoyed the snowball fight that Santa arranged for him. The illustrations in this book are all brick red, black, white, and gray, but the colors somehow feel festive (like a red Starbucks cup). There are times to shout “Epic!” and “Banzai!” as you read this story aloud, which make for a bit of extra fun.

Originally published on my blog, Nine Pages.

I frankly have come to expect better of Tillman. Wherever You Are My Love Will Find You gave Tillman a broad canvas. Here Tillman focuses in on the forehead and suggests that there is an aura of individually which invisibly crowns every person’s head. She tries to turn the book into a call for acceptance of others’ unique quirks, personalities, and differences, and I actually think that that’s where the text went wrong for me. In a quick moment, it went from mushy parent-to-child love to almost preachy universal acceptance by all towards all. While I like the message, I feel like Tillman’s handling of it was more of a fumble. Tillman, though, handles the rhyming verse fairly well, and I like the magical realism of her details both in text and in the illustrations. Tillman’s illustration are as always absolutely, mind-boggling stunning: bright, realistic, whimsical, beautiful, the sort of thing I’d hang in a nursery in a moment (and in fact, I could do). As always Tillman is careful to include diverse races and genders in her illustrations, though here, with bright crowns on their heads, the children’s individual features were washed away even more so than is usual in Tillman’s art. The illustrations earn this book that extra half star.

The Fantastic Adventures of Krishna, of which I won a copy through Goodreads, is an interpretation of the stories of living religion, one with a long, rich history. Let it be said that I know and respect that and that I hope I can review this picture book without offense. Certainly I mean to give none.

When I speak of the text I mean strictly what has been printed on the pages of this book and not the tradition of which it is an interpretation.

For once, I am here perhaps more qualified to speak of the illustrations than of the text. In high school, AP Art History kicked my butt, and I kicked and bit Art History back till we were both black and blue but I held up my high score. We parted enemies, but several years later on a crowded train platform, we’re cordial to one another. I might even smile at Art History, and we might take a moment to reminisce. My independent project was a brief history of Indian art. The illustrations of The Fantastic Adventures of Krishna are more than drawings for a children’s book; they are iconic depictions of the story of the Hindu god Krishna. In fact, at least some of Demi’s illustrations are reinterpretations of older Pahari illustrations.

If Demi has simplified the illustrations to cater to her young audience, she has reflected the Kangra intricacy in her frames (an example of which can be seen on her illustation of Krishna and the wildfire).

Demi’s pages are touched by gold paint that heightens their iconic feel and also made for a pleasant surprise upon opening the book for the first time.

The images that she paints both with her illustrations and with the text is of an endearing child, sweet, playful, mischievous, and reckless bold in the face of danger to his friends. Krishna (and here I speak of the character and not the god) is a relatable figure to Demi’s young audience.

Apart from loving mythology of many cultures and the intricate art of India, I think it important to raise globally aware children. Demi’s is a book that can be enjoyed by children of any culture. I would be interested to read this book to young children. I wonder how they would respond. Certainly I think most children would wonder about Krishna’s blue skin. I don’t honestly know the proper response to that, other than it is an artistic shorthand, like Moses’ horns or the accompanying animals of the four Christian gospel writers. At my age too, Demi’s is a book to inspire conversation with a different culture.

Review originally published on my blog: http://550wordsorless.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/book-review-art-and-cultural-awareness-in-the-fantastic-adventures-of-krishna/. Examples of the illustrations alongside similar Indian artwork can be found there.

This book is written in Spanish with the English translation beneath. As a tool to learn either language it should be effective. It also counts from one to ten in both languages, so it could also be used as a counting book for either language. Through all this, the book actually manages to very succinctly tell a story through its prose and illustrations, albeit I think that it does not tell the more specific story that it intends to tell. Reading this, I read the story of a party prepared for and a party had. The story attempts, I think, to illustrate more specifically the construction and destruction of a traditional pinata, but in that I would say it has not succeeded. The illustrations are too busy and too few to fully illustrate that process, and most of the elements of the construction are not mentioned in the text, the story choosing to focus on the prizes inside of the pinata. Perhaps though the book has done enough as a language-learning and counting book that it might be forgiven and its looser plot accepted.

The illustrations are bright and colorful as one would expect from a book about a party. The children's West Highland white terrier lends continuity to the illustrations.

This book is ambitious, and really quite successful.

First posted on my blog, Nine Pages.

This book is marketed and displayed with the Thanksgiving books, but it’s really not specific to Thanksgiving. In fact, I don’t recall any mention of the holiday, and I know that I was relegated to the little kids’ table on holidays besides Thanksgiving—Christmas certainly, but sometimes July 4th, birthdays, really any holiday where families gather and share a meal. The adults’ table is dressed in all its finery: flowers on the table, matching place settings, and glasses made of glass or maybe even crystal. The kids’ table is a little rowdier—and more fun! They practice balancing spoons (and plates and flower vases) on their noses. The dog gets fed the broccoli casserole that the adults insist will help little kids grow strong even though it’s icky. The adults tell the kids to calm down, to be quiet, but the kids think that secretly the adults wish that they too could sit at the little kids’ table. Being sat at the little kids’ table can feel exclusionary, but this text helps to redeem the idea a little bit. For those families that deem a little kids’ table necessary and those kids who feel hurt by being sat away from the family, this book could be helpful. The text rhymes, but the rhymes are not too jarring. The illustrations are bright, and the family is multiracial without it being an issue.