Here are another few short story that I have read this year. These are not going towards any challenge but I thought I would just let you know what I thought about them. If you didn't catch my last one click the link and read my first Quicky Reviews #1. This is kind of cleaning house for all the books I have read this year.
Illustrator: Christopher Bing
Hardcover: 40 pages
Publisher: Chronicle Books (November 1, 2003)
Age: Pre-School and up
Source: Purchased from the Inglewood library
Book Description: A remarkable celebration from the Caldecott Honor-winning artist!
A clever young boy outwits a band of voracious tigers and returns home in triumph to a splendid feast of a yard-high stack of pancakes. The story, penned by Helen Brodie Bannerman for her two daughters in 1889, has captured the imagination of readers around the world and across many generations. But the pictures which accompanied her text were crudely stereotypical and hurtful to many. Caldecott Honor-winning artist Christopher Bing has spent almost fifteen years rediscovering the joy and energy of the original story. He respects that Bannerman was writing in an Indian setting and with Indian animals-after all, there are no tigers in Africa-and faithfully adheres to the original text. However, recognizing that the image of Sambo has been used as a symbol of repression of Africans and African-Americans, Christopher Bing celebrates Sambo as proudly African, a child of beauty and joy, wit and resourcefulness. In recreating the illusion of an antique, weathered, tiger-clawed storybook filled with exquisitely detailed paintings that draw upon a lush jungle-inspired palette, Christopher Bing s interpretation of Sambo s world seamlessly melds a grand sense of wonder with the minutiae of nature, and a story with history.
My thoughts: I loved the art in this book. I purchased it at the libraries Book Sale without reading it. Just flipping and looking at the pictures. The story overall is cute but I had a hard time with the writing. I think the grammar was annoying. Every sentence started with "And" There are so many other ways to start a sentence. The art is 5 stars! But the book as a whole is 3 stars.
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