KING LONG SHANKS
Jane Yolen, , illus. by Victoria Chess. . Harcourt/Voyager, $6 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-15-216341-9
This amphibian Emperor's New Clothes is "likely to please," said
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Reviewed on: 03/25/2002
Genre: Children's
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- Pegasus, the Flying HorseJane YolenYolen and Ming (previously paired for Merlin and the Dragons) mine Greek myth to retell the story of Bellerophon, the boy who tames a flying horse. Yolen recounts the tale through the voice of a Continue reading »
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- The Fairies' RingJane YolenYolen (Child of Faerie, Child of Earth) heralds the seductive charms of fairyland in this volume of stories and poems, masterfully illustrated with Mackey's (Cat Up a Tree) mystical oil paintings. Continue reading »
- Queen's Own Fool: A Novel of Mary Queen of ScotsJane Yolen, Robert Harris""La Jardini re,"" one of the court jesters to Mary Queen of Scots, is the subject of this collaborative offering from veteran Yolen (Off We Go! and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?, reviewed above) Continue reading »
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- How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Rooms?Jane YolenFavorite characters and titles are now available in board book editions. Dinos delight in acting like toddlers in original board books starring the prehistoric heroes first introduced in How Do Continue reading »
- The Barefoot Book of Ballet StoriesJane Yolen, Heidi Elisabet y. StempleReaders can dance through the pages of The Barefoot Book of Ballet Stories by Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple, illus. by Rebecca Guay. The compendium contains seven stories from across the Continue reading »
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- Pretty Princess PigJane Yolen, Heidi E. Y. StempleFancy Nancy in her attitude, Charles Schulz's Pigpen in her execution, this mother-daughter team's heroine has a charm all her own. Princess Pig hustles to get her home ready for her "big tea party," Continue reading »
- Sister Bear: A Norse TaleJane YolenThere isn't a dull moment in Yolen's rousing retelling of this Norwegian folktale, in which a girl tames a polar bear cub, defeats a band of tattooed trolls, and arrives at the court of the King of Continue reading »
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- What You Wish For: A Book for DarfurJane Yolen (et al.)Short stories that revolve around wishes form this volume created to raise money for Book Wish Foundation, a nonprofit organization working to build libraries for Darfur refugees living in Chad. Continue reading »
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- Take Two! A Celebration of TwinsJane Yolen, J. Patrick LewisThis playful collection of twin-themed poems, a welcome addition to the bookshelf on the subject of twins, is as much for parents as for kids. Early poems focus on the time before birth: “Wrestling Continue reading »
- Bug Off! Creepy, Crawly PoemsJane YolenThe team behind A Mirror to Nature and Wild Wings offers another striking pairing of poems and photographs about the natural world, in this case the mysterious lives of insects. Each poem (and Continue reading »
- Last LaughsJane Yolen, J. Patrick LewisLewis and Yolen team up for a darkly funny homage to the dearly departed—those with feathers, hooves, tails, and fins. An axe leans against a blood-stained stump while three feathers drift nearby Continue reading »
- Waking DragonsJane YolenDragons are just not morning people. They “bumble” and “tumble” out of bed, and the doughty little knight who is their master risks life and limb just getting them to “Put their jammies in the Continue reading »
- How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas?Jane YolenContinuing to follow the successful blueprint of the long-running How Do Dinosaurs books, Yolen and Teague pose the possibility of dinosaurs wreaking merry havoc on Christmas Eve. Uproarious Continue reading »
- How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah?Jane YolenYolen and Teague score a winner with this playful Chanukah story brought to life with bright and engaging illustrations. Each page poses a question of how a dinosaur would behave during the eight Continue reading »
- Curse of the Thirteenth Fey: The True Tale of Sleeping BeautyJane YolenYolen follows her Snow White retelling, Snow in Summer (2011), with a similarly inventive spin on Sleeping Beauty (like that book, this novel also derives from one of the author’s short stories). Continue reading »
- Curses! Foiled AgainJane YolenYolen’s smart, introspective, foil-wielding Aliera Carstairs returns, this time to thwart the Dark Lord’s plot to kidnap her beloved cousin. The Dark Lord wants the Defender’s weapon—that’s Aliera’s Continue reading »
- The Emily Sonnets: The Life of Emily DickinsonJane YolenThese 16 sonnets grew out of Yolen's lifelong love for Dickinson, who is a neighbor of sorts%E2%80%94her ancestral home is near Yolen's. Written in the voices of Dickinson, her sister, and others, Continue reading »
- Grumbles from the Forest: Fairy-Tale Voices with a TwistJane Yolen, Rebecca Kai DotlichYolen and Dotlich refashion 15 classic fairy tales into incisive poems told from dual perspectives. Cinderella laments wearing glass shoes when other choices were more sensible (“I could have put on/ Continue reading »
- Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves, and Other Female VillainsJane YolenMother-daughter collaborators Yolen and Stemple, who previously partnered with Guay on The Barefoot Book of Ballet Stories, revisit the lives and legendary misdeeds of 26 notorious women in this Continue reading »
- Wee Rhymes: Baby’s First Poetry BookJane Yolen“We both believe that literature begins in the cradle,” write Yolen and Dyer at the beginning of this collection of 75 brief but vivid poems. Most are originals from Yolen (10 poems are credited to Continue reading »
- The Hostage PrinceJane Yolen, Adam StempleYolen and Stemple%E2%80%94the mother-son team behind Troll Bridge, Pay the Piper, and B.U.G.%E2%80%94deliver a fast-paced adventure, first in a trilogy, which draws on fairy myth and lore. Aspen is a Continue reading »
- How Do Dinosaurs Say I’m Mad?Jane YolenYes, even dinosaurs have bad days, and a few of them are at their worst in this addition to Yolen and Teague’s popular series. It’s always a delight to watch Teague’s dinosaurs misbehave, and that’s Continue reading »
- Once Upon a Time: New Fairy TalesJane Yolen (et al.)Despite the subtitle, Guran (The Mammoth Book of Angels and Demons) has actually filled this anthology with adaptations of familiar tales. The stories include urban fantasy (“Warrior Dreams” by Cinda Continue reading »
- The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Vol. 2Jane Yolen (et al.)The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction—aka F&SF—has been one of the flagships of speculative fiction since its founding in 1949. While similarly lauded magazines, like Continue reading »
- Animal Stories: Heartwarming True Tales from the Animal KingdomJane YolenYolen and her children present 19 true stories about unusual animals. While anchored in reality, the vibrant storytelling and Ishida’s bold, posterlike acrylics occasionally invoke the feeling of Continue reading »
- A Plague of UnicornsJane YolenYolen (Owl Moon) weaves a magical yet believable tale of myth and magic in this charming middle-grade fantasy. In the mythical kingdom of Callanshire, James, son of the Duke of Callander, is sent Continue reading »
- Stone AngelJane YolenAn unnamed Jewish girl living in Paris fervently believes in angels—she need only look at the Gothic buildings around her to know they exist. Those angels seem “farther and farther away” after the Continue reading »
- How Do Dinosaurs Stay Safe?Jane YolenThroughout the How Do Dinosaurs series, prehistoric carnivores and herbivores have showed off some less-than-perfect behavior in modern settings. Now Yolen and Teague take the idea a bit farther: Continue reading »
- You Nest Here with MeJane Yolen, Heidi StempleFrequent mother-daughter collaborators Yolen and Stemple, whose previous books include Not All Princesses Dress in Pink, offer a gentle rhyming bedtime story that spotlights 14 birds’ Continue reading »
- Trash MountainJane YolenWhen an inquisitive red squirrel named Nutley summons the nerve to offer the "Paw of Friendship" to a group of nearby gray squirrels, they respond by tossing him off a cliff. Fearing for his life Continue reading »
- Sing a Season SongJane Yolen, Lisa Jane AshlockIn succinct, evocative poems, Yolen describes the seasons as they unfold in a forest habitat. In one winter scene, children play in the distance while foxes frolic in the foreground, and an owl and Continue reading »
- The Stranded WhaleJane YolenIt is 1971, and a girl named Sally and her brothers are walking home across the sand dunes of their Maine town when she sees "this big gray thing, humped on the drying sand." It's a beached gray Continue reading »
- Warrior WomenJane Yolen (et al.)Two dozen stories of women warriors form this epic anthology of stories about those forced to fight, those who chose to fight regardless of odds, those who ran from their destiny as warriors, and Continue reading »
- Mythic Delirium, Vol. 2Jane Yolen, C S Maccath, Swapna KishoreThe brilliant and the bland run side-by-side in the Allens' second collection of strange tales. Vivid prose and creepy concepts appear in Jessy Randall's "Maybe a Witch Lives There," in which two Continue reading »
- On Bird HillJane YolenFirst in a planned series (a portion of proceeds will benefit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology), this dreamy story follows a child and his dog on a stroll by the sea. Writing in characteristically Continue reading »
- Little Frog and the Scary Autumn ThingJane YolenVivid autumn foliage is generally considered to be a thing of beauty, but those unfamiliar colors spell danger to a young frog. “To Little Frog, red and gold were scary,” writes Yolen (On Bird Continue reading »
- How Do Dinosaurs Go to Sleep?Jane YolenYolen and Teague return to a subject they covered in their 2000 picture book, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?, as an unusual group of dinosaurs—concavenator, majungasaurus, and sauropelta, Continue reading »
- Stone ColdJane Yolen, Adam StempleCraig McGowan has little to believe in as a street urchin in 1930s Edinburgh, but just when he’s ready to give up and throw himself from the top of a church, he meets Silex, a demon trapped in a Continue reading »
- The Emerald CircusJane YolenThis slight collection contains several very strong stories but is weakened by its overarching theme: all of the pieces are riffs on famous fairy tales, or on the lives of writers or famous Continue reading »
- TEENY TINY TINGLY TALESNancy Van LaanThe three rhymed stories in this semi-scary collection vary in their effectiveness, but Chess's quirky illustrations will delight her many fans. Van Laan (When Winter Continue reading »
- GOOD NIGHT, DINOSAURSJudy Sierra"With a twist on an old lullaby theme, this volume offers a fanciful look at what happens when 'the sun [sinks] low/ in the Mesozoic sky,' " wrote Continue reading »
- THE SCAREDY CATSBarbara BottnerWhenever Mr. and Mrs. Scaredy Cat contemplate doing something, they fret so much ("All kinds of things can happen") that they end up doing nothing. The plump Mrs. Scaredy Cat doesn't Continue reading »
- The Costume PartyVictoria ChessFirst published in France, this droll story about Madame Coco and her five bull terriers will appeal to anyone who has wondered what to do on a rainy day. The unadorned text contains plenty of Continue reading »
- Brenda Berman, Wedding ExpertJane Breskin ZalbenEntertainingly headstrong Brenda is devastated that her favorite uncle is getting married. And her longstanding dream of wearing a gold lamé flower girl frock fizzles when she hears that Continue reading »
- Tales for the Perfect ChildFlorence Parry HeideChess's pictures of anthropomorphic bears, imaginatively attired, do justice to these stories, among the most fiendish inventions by the author of the Treehorn epics. Heide soberly recites trenchant Continue reading »
- Tales for the Perfect ChildFlorence Parry HeideIn PW 's words, ``Chess's pictures of anthropomorphic bears, imaginatively attired, do justice to these . . . fiendish inventions--trenchant stories of the ways adopted by boys and girls beside whom Continue reading »
- Ridicholas Nicholas: More Animal PoemsJ. Patrick LewisFans of Lewis and Chess's A Hippopotamusn't-and anyone who relishes quick-on-the-draw wordplay-will welcome this captivating companion volume, a menagerie of 33 poems about animals. Here dogs and Continue reading »
- Good Night, DinosaursJudy SierraWith a twist on an old lullaby theme, Sierra and Chess offer a fanciful look at what happens when ""the sun [sinks] low / in the Mesozoic sky"" and it [is] ""bedtime- / bedtime for dinosaurs."" In Continue reading »
- Tales for the Perfect ChildFlorence P. HeideSeven witty stories feature anthropomorphic bear cubs that are ingenious at evil, and good for laughs, said PW. Ages 7-up. Continue reading »
- The Beautiful Butterfly: A Folktale from SpainJudy SierraThe team behind Good Night, Dinosaurs here grants a happy ending to the tale of a heroine whose search for a mate traditionally ends with his death. In Sierra's comical version, a beguiling butterfly Continue reading »
- Jim, Who Ran Away from His Nurse, and Was Eaten by a Lion: A Cautionary TaleHilaire BellocParents who will stop at nothing to make their children behave may want to present this Victorian cautionary talein good spirit, of course. Belloc's Jim is very well provided for in his Continue reading »
- Once Around the BlockKevin HenkesAnnie's bored. The baby is crying, and that means Mama is taking care of him. The dog is busy scratching. Her best friend is on vacation. Annie goes out on the front steps to wait for Papa to come Continue reading »
- Princess Gorilla and a New Kind of WaterVerna AardemaArtist and author, displaying the considerable wit and style for which each is known, turn an age-old idea on its side: the events surrounding a contest for the hand of a princess. King Gorilla is Continue reading »
- The Complete Story of the Three Blind MiceJohn W. IvimeyIvimey's 1904 ``unexpurgated'' version of the classic rhyme tells how the three rodents of Mother Goose fame got into their terrible predicament in the first place, and how they recovered with the Continue reading »
- Ten Sly Piranhas: 2a Counting Story in Reverse--(A Tale of Wickedness--And Worse!)William WiseWise's provocative subtitle translates to a sort of ``Ten in a Bed'' of the deep, wherein the protagonists devour one another until the last succumbs to a hungry croc. The concept is clever enough, Continue reading »
- The Bigness ContestFlorence Parry HeideBeasley the hippopotamus longs to excel at something-- anything --but is stymied by his size: he fails miserably at athletic contests and can barely squeeze into his outfit for the Best Costume Continue reading »
- The Fat-Cats at SeaJ. Patrick Lewis, Victoria ChessIn rollicking poems matched with devilishly droll art, six well-fed felines set sail on The Frisky Dog under orders from Her Majesty, the Queen of Catmandoo, to bring back the incomparable sticky Continue reading »
- Slither McCreep and His Brother, JoeTony JohnstonTwo snake brothers learn to share in a book filled with ""reams of comic details,"" said PW, commenting also upon the ""peppy dialogue"" and ""vibrant visuals."" Ages 4-8. Continue reading »
- This for That: 5Verna AardemaIn this humorous tale, revised from an entry in the author's 1973 collection Behind the Back of the Mountain, an opportunistic rabbit on an African savanna unrepentantly cons her friends. She gets Continue reading »
- The Little BuggersJ. Patrick LewisThe nimble duo behind A Hippopotamusn't and Ridicholas Nicholas returns with another hilarious poetry collection. Lewis displays his gift for verbal pyrotechnics as his wandering eye alights on a Continue reading »
- Beautiful Buehla and the Zany Zoo Makeover:Gary HoggIn this silly send-up of the trend for makeovers, Beautiful Buehla primps Mr. Phibbs's zoo animals for their photo shoot. Despite Buehla's exhortations to apply the appropriate eye shadow, wear the Continue reading »
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PW spoke with Yolen about writing her 365th book, 'Mapping the Bones,' a retelling of “Hansel and Gretel” set during the Continue reading »
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PW EDITORS’ PICKS FOR THE BEST NEW BOOKS
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“Up and down the crooked spine of the Andes... playing an epic game of paka paka con la papa, potato hide-and-seek,” travels agronomist Alberto Salas (b. 1943), questing for Continue reading »
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