Review by New York Times Review
NEW YORK CITY has long held pride of place as an inspiration for American picture books. It's not just that so many writers, illustrators and publishers live and work in New York. The city occupies a special niche in the nation's imaginative landscape as an unparalleled concentration of biggests, boldests and bests; as a world crossroads; as a place where dreams come true. The very first such illustrated book for young readers, Samuel Wood's "New-York Cries" (1808), wrapped a slim collection of peddlers' traditional rhymes and chants in a thinly veiled warning: study hard and live right or risk ending up selling apples on the street, or worse. Later books replaced ham-fisted lesson-mongering with a kinder, gentler attitude informed by modern psychology and progressive education. Hardie Gramatky's "Little Toot" (1939) - an edition has just appeared to mark the artist's birth centenary - conveyed the message that wee tugboats (and by analogy small children) have a role to play in the daunting world of great ships and grown-ups. Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight's "Eloise" (1955) reimagined the Plaza as a precocious 6-year-old's personal playground. "The House on East 88th Street," "In the Night Kitchen," "The Snowy Day," "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers": the list goes on, the genre having, if anything, gained new momentum in the emotional aftermath of 9/11. One happy consequence of all this interest is the reintroduction of "The Castle on Hester Street," Linda Heller's zestful tale of Russian-Jewish immigration at the turn of the last century, in a 25th-anniversary edition with robust new illustrations by the Russian émigré artist Boris Kulikov. Loving grandparents, Rose and Sol, vie for young Julie's attention as they give wildly contrasting accounts of their Old World departures and New York arrivals. Sol, the dreamer, speaks of dockside greetings from President Teddy Roosevelt and of living like a king on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Rose, the realist, recalls cramped quarters and long hours of piecework. Both versions of the past, Heller suggests, contain a kernel of truth. Together, they make a palpable family legacy: one part bitter, one part sweet, all worth remembering. For decades, the Lower East Side served as the city's principal melting pot. But New York has always been dotted with outposts where subcultures jostle and mix. Ted Lewin takes readers inside one of them in his new book, "At Gleason's Gym," about the storied training ground for fighters like Muhammad Ali and Jake La Motta. Thai kickboxers and a Russian girl are among the regulars who receive passing nods in a narrative that opens with Sugar Boy Younan, a real 9-year-old, as a fighter to watch. Lewin, who comes from a family of professional wrestlers, has the chops as a watercolorist and draftsman to convey the fever-pitch action in Gleason's, which occupies a sprawling loft near the Brooklyn Bridge. Boxing prowess may not be everyone's dream. But who would dispute Sugar Boy's father's larger goal for his son: "a good brain in a good body"? New York's occasionally mean streets suddenly seemed less so when in the early 1990s possibly the first-ever red-tailed hawks breezed into town, nesting and mating in the upper reaches of a Fifth Avenue high-rise. Marie Winn, a journalist, gave a memorable account of the tale for adult readers in "Red-Tails in Love (1998). It was only a matter of time before the story made its way into books for young readers. This spring brought Jeanette Winter's "Tale of Pale Male," and now there is Meghan McCarthy's "City Hawk." McCarthy gets off to a shaky start with a stage-setting reference to Central Park as the "city's largest park" (Pelham Bay Park is three times the size), then struggles to find a story line in all the fascinating facts, a great many of which have ended up in a note at the back of the book. Her very appealing, broad-brush illustrations have better focus, ranging effortlessly from goofy to grand, registering many a curious detail of architectural ornamentation and casual-chic park wear. Not to mention those natty lovebirds' bedroom eyes! Back to Brooklyn: a couple of years ago, Mo Willems gave an uproarious account of a tantrum thrown in the streets of Park Slope by a vibrant preverbal child who had just lost her inseparable friend, a stuffed toy rabbit named Knuffle Bunny. In "Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity," a slightly older Trixie returns as an engaging chatterbox, only to suffer another rude awakening when a classmate comes to preschool clutching a bunny identical to her own "one of a kind" companion. Bad tempers are the predictable result of the egocentrism-smashing revelation, and more fireworks ensue with the accidental switching of the two rabbits by the teacher, and the traumatic discovery of the mix-up at 2:30 a.m. Willems has a brilliant knack for exposing early childhood's developmental pivot points, and for lampooning the best efforts of today's hip but hapless parents to do the right thing. In the artist's computer-manipulated graphics, manically wired and warmhearted cartoon characters rendered in color play out their workaday dramas against a backdrop of black-and-white photographs of neighborhood streets and interiors. Beyond the novelty of the special effect lies the stirring truth that the city that never sleeps is a self-regenerating, nonstop theater of becoming, a place where on any given day, amid huge skyscrapers and venerable brownstone blocks, two new friends may decide to draw their own favorite bunnies on the nearest sidewalk for all the world to see. Leonard S. Marcus's "Golden Legacy: How Golden Books Won Children's Hearts, Changed Publishing Forever and Became an American Icon Along the Way" will be published this month.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
Knuffle Bunny returns, but this time he has a doppelganger. Trixie is off to school, and things are going well enough until she notices that Sonja is holding her own Knuffle Bunny. Arrgh! The afternoon results in dueling bunnies, which are confiscated by the teacher. Happily, they are returned at the end of the day, but at 2:30 a.m. realization hits: the bunny Trixie is sleeping with is not her own. Despite parental protestations, phone calls are placed, bunnies are exchanged, and the girls, bonded during the trauma, become best friends. This has much of the charm of Knuffle Bunny (2004), a Caldecott Honor Book, but the premise is stretched here: the middle-of-the-night meeting is energetic, but it seems overplayed. As in the previous title, the slice-of-life artwork is smashing. Willem's cartoon-style art, set against crisp black-and-white photos of New York City interiors and exteriors, catches every bit of the plentiful emotion. Keen-eyed kids will have fun keeping track of the Knuffle Bunny as he's lost, then found again.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this sympathetic sequel to Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, former toddler Trixie gains verbal dexterity and still treasures her rag doll, Knuffle Bunny. Tugging her gangly, red-haired father along the sidewalk, she hurries to her preschool's show-and-tell, eager to show off her pale-green, floppy rabbit. "But just as her daddy kissed her good-bye, Trixie saw Sonja." No words need explain Trixie's distressed expression, because a turn of the page says it all: Trixie's classmate, with a wicked smirk, is clutching a bunny of her own. "Suddenly, Trixie's one-of-a-kind Knuffle Bunny wasn't so one-of-a-kind anymore." Each girl hugs her rabbit, with Trixie insisting, "Kuh-nuffle! Kuh-nuffle!" and Sonja retorting, "Nuffle! Nuffle!" Their teacher raises an eyebrow and puts both rabbits in time-out until the end of the day. Willems expertly sets up this case of mistaken identity, as each girl accidentally brings home the wrong bunny, and a late-night exchange is needed to resolve the girls' dilemma. As in the first book, Willems creates comic-book-style panels, with grayscale photographs of Brooklyn as backgrounds for his color-illustrated characters; insiders will recognize allusions to past Willems titles too. In a satisfying resolution, Trixie and Sonja become best friends, demonstrating that two or more children can enjoy similar toys. Not a word or image feels out of place. Ages 3-6. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-Mo Willems's warm, child-friendly sequel (Hyperion, 2007) to his Caldecott Honor book Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale (Hyperion, 2004; Weston Woods, 2006), is well-treated in this excellent production. When Trixie brings Knuffle Bunny to school and discovers that someone else in the class has the same bunny, chaos ensues, but in the end Trixie gains a new best friend. Willem's simple characters are fully animated against his static digitally-manipulated black-and-white photograph backgrounds. The bright colors of the cartoon-like characters stand out against the intricate yet muted photographs, creating an interesting blend of fiction and reality, with the story clearly taking the lead role. Willems, as well as his wife and daughter, provide the voices for the main characters. Some additional dialogue has been added to the story, as well as comments between father and daughter highlighting introductory artwork, endpapers, and the back cover illustration. Jazzy background music adds to the mix. Read-along subtitles are optional. A ten-minute interview with the author, excerpted from a longer one found on Getting to Know Mo Willems (Weston Woods, 2009), provides insights into his writing and illustrating processes and a clear vision of his connection with young children. This delightful production, full of energy and fun, will resonate with viewers.-Teresa Bateman, Brigadoon Elementary School, Federal Way, WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Preschool) This second book starring Trixie, her parents, and her best stuffed-animal friend (Knuffle Bunny, rev. 9/04) touches on situations and emotions immediately familiar to small children and their grownup caregivers. Trixie (older now, and a whole lot more verbal than when we first met her) can't wait to share her ""one-of-a-kind"" Knuffle Bunny with her preschool friends. But when she spots classmate Sonja with a Knuffle Bunny look-alike (Sonja calls hers ""Nuffle""), ""the morning [does] not go well."" The girls fight, and the bunnies are confiscated for the day. When it's time to go home, their teacher reunites each girl with her toy...or so it seems. An urgent middle-of-the-night phone call (""We have your bunny"") and an emergency rabbit exchange restore order and provide Trixie with her first human best friend. Willems's page design and animation-inspired panel illustrations are just as visually dynamic as in the first book. As before, colorful cartoon-style characters are set against black-and-white photographs of an urban neighborhood. While the text winks above children's heads a couple of times, most young listeners will be so engaged in the drama that they'll care as little as Trixie does about such technicalities as ""what '2:30 a.m.' means."" Who needs sleep at a time like this? (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Trixie knows that she will wow all the kids at Pre-K with her "one-of-a-kind" toy, but she doesn't reckon on Sonja, who arrives with her own Knuffle Bunny--and the morning does "not go well." The two bunnies are confiscated and returned at the end of the day, but neither girl notices that they've been swapped, until the wee hours of the morning. Willems revisits his black-and-white Brooklyn, his now-signature cartoon characters superimposed on the photographs. This technique here yields some spectacular results: The middle-of-the-night hostage exchange features a glorious image of the Manhattan skyline, the teeny figures of Trixie and her daddy and Sonja and her daddy approaching from opposite sides of Grand Army Plaza. His mastery of pacing is evident in every panel and page turn, the understated text punctuating the illustrations perfectly, and his use of the conventions of cartooning add to the hilarity. Too often, sequels come off as obviously calculated attempts to cash in on success; this offering, with its technical brilliance and its total and sympathetic understanding of the psychology of the preschooler, stands as magnificent in its own right. (Picture book. 3-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
