Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Phaidon continues its reissue program of Ungerer's work with the 1959 story of a kangaroo born with wings, who leaves her parents to explore the wide world beyond. The artwork has been color-corrected in this edition and the text updated; matching the restraint of Ungerer's storytelling is a simplified palette of pale blue and brown, well suited both to the desert in which Adelaide grows up and to the streets of Paris where she makes her home, becoming a stage performer, pulling off a daring rescue, and eventually falling in love and starting a family of her own. Certain details-a pilot's biplane, a "rich maharajah" riding an elephant, a 1920s-era taxicab-will seem quaint, but others transcend the decades. (Air travelers will empathize with the thorough inspection Adelaide receives from French customs officials, as one shoves a hand into her pouch.) It's a story about realizing one's potential and making use of one's gifts, no matter how unusual-an evergreen message if ever there was one. Ages 4-8. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Horn Book Review
In this reprint of Ungerer's 1959 picture book, fledgling kangaroo Adelaide, unaccountably born with wings, flies halfway around the world to Paris, where customs officials inspect her empty pouch, then tours the city with a new friend, a man who paid her taxi fare. She stars onstage; heroically rescues two children from a burning building (that pouch comes in handy); negotiates her kangaroo fianc's freedom from the zoo; and ends with a pocketful of wee ones, including one with wings. The message that an inborn difference may enable creative flight is obvious, though implicit; and if the story's trajectory is predictable and the quiet tan and gray-blue palette looks old-fashioned, Ungerer remains a master of suggestion: with marvelous skill, his agile pen embellishes the straightforward visual narrative, arrayed on spacious white, with a wealth of comical details of posture and countenance. The nonstop action will easily engage a group; better yet, explore the humorous nuances of these characters' expressions by sharing them one on one. joanna rudge long (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The third English edition of a justly obscure tale (it was originally published in 1959) featuring a winged kangaroo whose travels end in Paris.As soon as she's able, Adelaide flies away from her parentsfirst to visit India and other locales with a pilot, then to tour Paris with a well-to-do gentleman, become an exotic dancer in his music hall and injure herself rescuing two children from a burning building. Recovering, she falls in love with a kangaroo in a local zoo and, after a fancy church wedding, settles down to produce little winged offspring with the rather fatuous reflection that "her adventures could have only happened with her special set of wings." The terse text is matched to sketchy, two-color illustrations in which the garish red of earlier versions has been replaced with a drab, caf-au-lait brown. Unlike recent revivals of Ungerer titlesThree Robbers (2008),Moon Man(2009) and especiallyOtto: The Autobiography of a Teddy Bear(2010)this both shows its age and offers no compensatory graphic interest or emotional depth. While it could be read as a metaphorical bildungsroman by adults, children will likely be indifferent.Slight when new, it's now a period piece to boot.(Picture book. 6-8)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
