Book Buds Kidlit Reviews

Planting a seed of kindness

The Apple-Pip Princess
by Jane Ray
Candlewick Press

You know how the fairytale goes. There are three sons or three daughters and the aging father or wizard or king will leave all he has to the wisest one, as determined by some task or other they must complete that will prove which one deserves to rule.

The oldest is usually ambitious, the second is vain and competitive, the third has a good heart. They each set about scheming or building or vying for the king's attention, but the third prevails through some simple act of kindness or previously unsuspected wisdom.

Think King Lear but without all those messy deaths.

Ray offers her colorful take of the old tale in a naive style, which emphasizes its folkloric origins. She uses a warm palette, perhaps drawing from a Mediterranean or North African palette (judging by the dark-skinned family, though of course that's beside the point). A handful of mixed media collages are skillfully placed for maximum comic effect when the bad siblings wreak their havoc.

Three princesses each possess something of their late mother's--two choose material things, the third picks a simple box, which she fills with such charming keepsakes as a burst of nightingale song or a splash of sunlight.  And, of course, an apple pip.

When the old king's challenge comes, Ray sets the stakes high: the land's been barren since the queen's death and devoid of birdsong or laughter. Each daughter has only a week to impress their still-grieving father. You're rooting for the youngest, Serenity, especially as the wicked older sisters only find ways to make folks more miserable.

Serenity doesn't fail in her mission, or in her ability to please readers too. She's a delight to watch in action, thoughtful and kind, and her smallest, simplest act of selflessness sprouts into something much larger than expected, as all good deeds in all good folk tales do. All her enchanted items get used in the process, but each has its payoff too. At no point does Ray belabor the message, and even the mean older sisters get a pleasant reprieve. 

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Blown away in Iceland

How the Ladies Stopped the Wind
By Bruce McMillan
Illustrated by Gunnella

Reviewed by Ilene Goldman

The idea that ladies could stop wind intrigued me when I saw this book. I might have expected a superhero tale had it not been for the cover image of a woman clinging to a pram, blowing in the wind next to similarly-afflicted chickens, while a baby smiles and waves.

The ladies of this small Icelandic village have a problem—the wind gusts so strongly that it is nearly impossible to walk.  They come up with a creative and environmentally-sound solution; plant trees to block the wind. They enlist the help of the chickens (to make fertilizer). But, the village’s naughty sheep keep eating the trees. Can the cows help the ladies keep the sheep away?  Will the chickens continue to produce fertilizer?  Will the trees block the wind?

This is a story about problem-solving, planning, and perseverance. Even when the sheep eat the trees and the chickens overproduce (yuck), the ladies remain dedicated to their goal.  Ultimately, they cooperate to improve the quality of life for their village and, the book tells us, their solution is adopted across Iceland.  A bit awkwardly told in places, the story charms and teaches.

Gunnella’s artwork adds whimsy and quaintness to this tale. One can’t help but giggle at seeing ladies and chickens singing to sheep to beg them not to eat the trees.

Rating: *\*\*\

Spinning legends

The Silk Princess
by Charles Santore

Random House

Reviewed by Kelly Herold

Charles Santore takes an ancient Chinese legend about the discovery of silk from silkworms and turns it into a story of magic and adventure for the school-aged child.  Indeed, The Silk Princess is a picture book best suited for children who already enjoy The Magic Treehouse or The Spiderwick Chronicles.  It's a picture book for children
entranced by wonder of myth and enchantment.

Princess Hsi-Ling Chi is the lone and ignored daughter of The Emperor Huang-Ti.  Even though Hsi-Ling is an obedient and well-behaved child, she can never live up to her brothers in her father's eyes.

One day, Hsi-Ling is enjoying her tea in the royal gardens when a cocoon falls in to her tea.  The cocoon begins to unravel in the hot tea and Hsi-Ling tells her mother, "'I will tie this end of the thread around my waist, and you, Mother, will hold the cocoon.  I shall walk away from you, and we shall see how long this fine thread is.  I will go to the end of the gardens, should the thread reach that far.'"  The thread--not only a silk thread perfect for weaving, but also a symbol for one's first steps away from home--reaches much further from the garden.  Hsi-Ling walks as far as the Palace, the Holy
Mountains, and a bridge, under which a fearsome dragon lives.  When Hsi-Ling crosses the bridge and defeats the dragon, she meets an old man who teaches her the secret of silk thread and promises to accompany her home. 

Santore uses the language of myth and legend in The Silk Princess, never simplifying for the sake of genre. Moreover his palate is sophisticated--full of browns, oranges, reds, and dark greens--perfect for readers beginning to learn more about art.  What is most striking about the visual aspect of The Silk Princess is how Santore highlights Princess Hsi-Ling's face.  While all the characters are painted in a realistic style with
only slight exaggerations, Hsi-Ling's face is mobile and infused with light.  In every illustration, she is the focus as light and shadow play upon her beautiful, expressive face.

The Silk Princess is highly recommended for readers ages six to ten.  Don't be afraid to give it to older children as well--children who may be studying legend or China in the fifth and sixth grades.

Rating: *\*\*\

Happily before and after

Previously
by Allan Ahlberg; illustrated by Bruce Ingman

Candlewick Press

What if you told a few fairy tales backwards? Y'know, started from the end, and then tried to figure out where that beanstalk had come from, or why Goldilocks was running through the forest.

That's the premise behind this fresh, funny take on the Brothers Grimm, with Ingman's sprightly acrylics and Ahlberg's playful free verse creating links between the stories. So Goldilocks runs into Jack and his magic beans, who's argued with his sister, Jill, and before that tumble had seen a frog, who'd been a prince, and so on ... 

It's not an easy job to make these stories new, but they take on unexpected, and wholly contemporary meanings, that leads to where the gingerbread boy begins, in a field of wheat, and even beyond that, to beginnings a child must imagine.

And while Goldilocks and all the others' tales may wind and wend backwardly into one, it's designed leave us at loose ends rather than tie things up, a book of possibilities rather than plots.

The book's humor rests on knowing the original fairy tales--not always a given in a post-Shrek culture. As with Stinky Cheese Man, kids can sense from an adult's reaction that there's something funny going on that they're not quite getting, and may demand to know more. That's always a good thing.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

No cages for these Cajuns

In honor of a legendary place, I'm taking on three reviews at once. Think I can do it?

All take place in rural Loozyanna, where my mother lived briefly in her 20s, and where locals used to feel the top of her head for horns.

They're a bold, brash, bigger-than-life people, alright, and not afraid to embrace myths, superstitions and the like--though, as in the above example, maybe not always so charmingly.

Still, three new picture books capture the best of the Bayou, from the bouncy, punctuated rhythms of their speech, their love of fast music and sloooow cooking, and the outlandish, outsized similes and metaphors that pepper their conversation.

A sleeper of a story--and some questions for readers

The Sleeping Giant: A Tale from Kaua'i
retold and illustrated by Edna Cabcabin Moran

I like to think Paul Bunyan-style legends exist in all cultures. Think Gargantua or Goliath or the lovely Dona Flor.

In The Sleeping Giant, we learn how a mountain on the island of Kaua'i came to be. The outsized fellow's starts as an enchanted fish, and he develops an appetite for poi that's of, well, legendary proportions. Even the local kahuna--a wise man or shaman--is stumped. Only a young girl, Pualani, has a clue how to appease his rapacious hunger.

The story satisfies on several levels. What kid won't love seeing Pualani come off wiser than the villagers? It helps the fisherman has to eat major crow after dismissing her. On a more profound level, the giant can't be sent away until he's found what he's lost, or filled some empty space besides his tummy.

While not a true quest story, it still has elements of a heroic journey as Pualani must find a way to appease the giant and save her people's dwindling food supply. Told as a folk narrative, it's filled with musical Hawaiian phrases (there's a glossary in back, along with end notes), and the story glides as gracefully as a hula dance on a sultry summer's eve.

The illustrations look like acrylics with a touch of pastel, with swathes of sunny yellows and cooling blues.

On a related note, the author emailed me an interesting aside, wondering whether:

"multicultural folktales have been 'out of fashion' for a while. I hear they are coming back, albeit slowly and very carefully."

She wrote me after I'd started to draft my review and its discussion of other giant folkloric figures. Perhaps I have a myopic view, since I'm a multi-culti enthusiast.

Here's my take: I think folk tales may be a small niche, but a valuable one. They tell us where we came from, and link us to a fascinating past. They often have lessons that carry over to modern times, even when we're aware of  the superstitions that gave rise to them.

The problem may be that people--parents, especially--may be pre-selecting those folk tales that speak to their particular roots. As a Jewish parent, I can't wait until my kids are old enough for Isaac Bashevis Singer. I assume many Hispanic parents are happy to explore the mythic figures to come out of Latin American culture.

So are we fragmenting that already tiny splinter of a genre? Or do some traditions have more traction--say, Native American folk tales, which seem to fascinate everyone?

Any thoughts?

New: Buy it from Powells.

Rating: *\*\*\

Turning potatoes into gold

One Potato, Two Potato
by Cynthia DeFelice; illustrated by Andrea U'Ren

There's something about the Irish and their folklore that never lets you go. They're not embarrassed to talk about leprechauns or pixies as if discussing the weather, and their tales settle into some brightly lit corner of the imagination and sprinkle fairy dust everywhere.

So transplanting a Chinese folk tale to Ireland makes perfect sense. What struck me first is how starkly it introduces kids to poverty, Irish-style: the barren field, the gaunt husband and wife, how they must share a worn coat and a single, threadbare blanket. They scrimp and ration, eating only a  potato a day between them, but still love each other, bless the saints, and tend their meager farm.

I don't know if kids raised with full refrigerators and overstocked cupboards will understand that kind of optimism (let alone gratitude) in the face of privation, but they should. And if ever there were two people in need of a little uplifting magic, it's the O'Grady's in this getsya-right-there story of love and generosity.

When Mr. O'Grady plucks the last potato from the soil, he forlornly keeps digging, hoping he's wrong, and instead finds a large pot. You know the kind; big and iron and black and very obviously magical. Sure enough, when he tosses the last potato in, he pulls out two. When Mrs. O'Grady drops her only hairpin in, it gives her back a second, identical one.

If you guess where the story goes from there, you'd be only half right. Because they've always had what they needed most -- each other -- and the pot gives them that gift all over again in an unexpected and amusing way.

Here's what's uniquely Irish about this: in other traditions, the magic pot would cause some horrible problem or row that could only be solved by tossing it away. In a TV sitcom, they'd be rich, rich, rich, and neurotic neighbors would show up to steal the best lines. Yawn. 

In this story, they wind up twice as content, and that's enough. How humbling! How enchanting. And how wonderfully, quirkily Irish.

U'Ren's reed-thin O'Grady's are sharply drawn as careworn and fragile, but glow with affection and wisdom.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Understanding Aesop

Aesop's Fables

Selected and illustrated by Lisbeth Zwerger

I don't remember why I was telling my son "The Tortoise and The Hare" recently, but I do recall a bell dinging that I had an Aesop book around here someplace.

Sure enough, the book languished in a pile in my office. Once in our grubby paws, however, there was no stopping us and we leafed through them all.

I don't know if this compilation is the most complete or not, but the main ones seem to be here: the city mouse and his country cousin, the milkmaid counting her unhatched chicks, the fox and his sour grapes, plus a few less familiar ones, like a satyr and a man dining together.

Zwerger distills the stories down to their barest bones, allowing Aesop's folk wisdom to shine through without the fancy footwork that bogs down some of the Grimms brothers' tales. Zwerger, who lives in Switzerland, peoples her watercolors with Alpine-looking peasants with ruddy cheeks and round bellies, but her landscapes have a subdued Eastern feel to them.

Each tale is typeset on a soothing white background with its illustration on a facing page for an uncluttered layout. Flap copy states this is a reissue of an 1989 classic translated from the German, but it's one of those timeless books that belongs on every shelf.

After all, you never know when some little person might ask about that pokey ol' Tortoise.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Waxing and waning

How the Moon Regained Her Shape

by Janet Ruth Heller; illustrated by Ben Hodson

That mean ol' Sun, always flaring up at everyone. He roars at Moon, getting her all out of shape. But when she sees how many friends she has among animals and people on Earth, she perks up, poor girl.

Told and drawn as a Native American folk tale (I'm thinking Pacific Northwest?), the story should help kids understand how they can retreat from bullies and stick by the folks who love them. And, oh yeah, there's all these cool phases of the moon to learn about too.

As with most titles from this publisher, there's nifty facts and project ideas in the back.

Rating: *\*\

A little Latina magic

Dona Flor

by Pat Mora; illustrated by Raul Colon

A Gift of Gracias

by Julia Alvarez; illustrated by Beatriz Vidal

Perhaps it's odd or inappropriate to pair a magical realism story with a religious one, since many will insist that there's no suspense of disbelief in the latter, at least for the religiously inclined. That'd be missing what the stories have in common, which is more than the occasional Spanish phrase and Hispanic backdrop (and the fact that they arrived in the same box. Ah well).

One's a tall tale from what could be either the American Southwest or northern Mexico, the other's the Dominican legend of Our Lady of Altagracia (literally "High Grace").

Mora creates a larger-than-life heroine in the giantess Dona Flor, giving her oversized common sense as well as a heart as big as the hand-made tortillas that double as roofs for a grateful pueblo. When a puma's thunderous roars make both people and animals tremble, she righteously marches off to settle matters. How refreshing to see a protagonist who doesn't face every affront with a massive shot of testosterone, but with folksy wisdom and a wry smile.

Little Maria in The Gift of Gracias prays that her family won't have to leave colonial Hispaniola (today's Dominican Republic) after their olive crop fails. She's rewarded with a dream of planting oranges, accompanied by a vision of the Virgin. When her family plants orange seeds, the trees mature quickly and bear a life-saving harvest.

An aboriginal servant, Quisqueya, acts as a sort of Catholic spirit guide, appearing in Maria's dreams and later bringing home a blanket with the Virgin's likeness that's hung in the new orchard. Alvarez blurs the distinction between the folkloric and the sacred, with a Virgin firmly rooted in Dominican soil and native culture.

It makes the story decidedly Latino, just as Dona Flor, who may have girth akin to Paul Bunyan's, but whose story is only American in the largest possible sense -- an America that spans two continents and whose people are as likely to speak Spanish as not.

Both books channel Diego Rivera in their homage to peasants, though maybe that's not the right word. I think of Latino folk art when I see the rounded figures and earthy colors and the artists' celebration of the simple and everyday. Plus there's the usual clues: the flattened picture plane, the minimal use of light and shadow, the uncluttered compositions, and how the artists freely mix the mundane and the supernatural as if it were an expected thing. 

The act of planting orange seeds takes on a religious solemnity, for example, with figures praying as they stoop at their work. Vidal used a magnifying glass on the many details, but her pictures remain clear, straightforward depictions of a modest family's brush with divine grace.

Colon's Dona Flor soars, ethereal and sweet, the lines smudged and smoothed to make her literally soft around the edges, a depiction that is more awed than religious, but uplifting in its own way. 

Rating: *\*\*\