Review by New York Times Review
FOR VERY YOUNG children, even a trip to a grocery store can be thrilling. Cheese samples, the fish department and the dewy surprise of automatic misting in the produce section: Lots of marvels are packed in those prosaic aisles. Some of the most enduring children's books transform something ordinary - a purple crayon, a wardrobe, a red pebble - into vehicles for exhilarating journeys. Three new picture books follow the tradition. In space, at sea, in a twilight world - these books take readers on escapes so transporting it's a pleasure to get lost. Aaron Becker's new book, "Return," bridges the divide between the mundane and the fantastic. "Return" is the final book in his wordless trilogy that began spectacularly with "Journey," which won a Caldecott Honor, and continued with the fast-paced "Quest." Each book follows the creative mind of a bored, imaginative child who uses an enchanted red marker to draw her way out of her room and into a land of evil warriors, a king of color and dazzling architecture. "Return" begins with a double-page view of a house in a delightfully detailed crosssection. Even the slice of the basement that's visible reveals intriguing details. A guitar and a surfboard hint at the lives above. Blanketed by a wash of sepia, the scene features just a few patches of bright color, which illuminate the page like spotlights: A busy dad works at one end of the house while his daughter appears in the opposite corner, drawing an arched portal on her wall, planning her escape. A red kite on the floor prompts the father to look for his daughter. He follows her through the door into the mythic kingdom. The elegance of the idea, which was so startling and liberating in "Journey" - that door could lead anywhere! - dissipates a little in "Return" as plot points pile up. Now the door leads everywhere. There's a sword fight between a king and an evil warrior, a midair disaster and a submarine exploration that leads father and daughter to some cave paintings that tell a largely inscrutable back story. But despite the kinks in the tale, "Return" offers straight shots of pleasure. The rich jewel-tone world Becker has created in pen and ink and watercolor illustrations is richly cinematic. And in a moving turn, father and daughter take some of that warmth and color back home. On the last page their relationship gets a lift as they fly the red kite together. The landscape covered in "The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles" is largely internal, but the book - the story of a lonely man whose unique job ultimately allows him to connect - travels deep. Solitary and unmoored, the title hero of the book collects bottles that bob up in the sea, then delivers the letters inside. "Most of the time," Michelle Cuevas writes, "they made people quite happy, for a letter can hold the treasure of a clam-hugged pearl." Cuevas's prose is laden with gems like that: gorgeous sentences as precious as the messages themselves. Beauty shines through a fog of sadness: Although the unofficial postman loves his job, he longs for a letter of his own. Just when he seems at his lowest a bottle appears bearing no name, but with a mysterious invitation inside. "I am having a party," the note reads. "Tomorrow, evening tide, at the seashore." A beach party? Who wouldn't be intrigued? The Uncorker brightens at the idea, as do all the other townspeople when he shows them the invitation. His search for the true recipient is not successful, but the party it inspires is. At the appointed hour a clutch of towns-people, including the Uncorker, show up at the beach for music, dancing and snacks. And just like that, the bubble of sorrow breaks in a little ecstatic burst. Erin E. Stead's tender illustrations match the spare, moody story. Colors - the tawny body of a cat, the red of the man's Cousteau-esque knit cap - bloom within Stead's whispery pencil drawings. The shaded backgrounds resemble crayon rubbings, the kind kids use to capture on paper the patterns of leaves or coins or headstones. Under the dark surface of "The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles" the outline of friendship appears and a welcoming community rises. In "Armstrong," Torben Kuhlmann takes a groundbreaking journey from history - the first landing on the moon - and shrinks it to pocket size. Dollhouse devotees know how miniatures mess with your perception of the world, adorably. Finely split loaves of bread and tiny tubes of toothpaste are irresistible. Small pleasures fill the pages of Kuhlmann's picture-book-size graphic novel, starting with the hero, a charismatic mouse. He appears on the first spread, tiny eyes peering through a huge telescope. The budding astronomer fills pages with observations about the phases of the moon. During a secret meeting of all the mice in town at a cheese shop, the furry scientist presents his findings. "The moon is a giant ball of stone!" he announces. The other mice are incredulous. They, of course, believe it is made of cheese. Their doubt spurs the hero to action. Inspired by an experienced aviator mouse at the Smithsonian (the protagonist of Kuhlmann's previous book "Lindbergh"), he makes plans to build his own flying machine and launch himself into space to prove his theory. The detailed, warm-tone illustrations, in pencil and watercolor, document the mouse's progress as he repurposes household objects - an alarm clock, tin foil, a glass ink well - to construct a spacesuit and power his flight. Period details evoke the mid-1950s, and a plot twist suggests that the mouse's work paved the way for the human space program. A guide at the back of the book tells the true story of the history of space travel. Maybe it's the meticulous, photorealistic art (or just my scientific naïveté), but the mouse's experiments read not only as charming fun but also as somehow plausible. His greatest failure - a metal roller skate rocket that sparks a devastating fire - may inspire (safer!) home experiments. The successful moon landing and return are triumphant moments, but it's his tinkerings that provide a whole universe of joy. NICOLE LAMY is a columnist and former books editor for The Boston Globe.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 14, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Kuhlmann is no stranger to animal inventors (Moletown, 2015) or mice with a penchant for flight (Lindbergh, 2014), and his newest illustrated tale dovetails the themes with a stargazing mouse who shoots for the moon. Opening with a wordless double-page spread, a tiny mouse stands atop a pile of books in a cluttered attic to look through a gigantic telescope at the night sky. He decides to share his discoveries at a secret mouse meeting, but when he makes the exciting announcement that the moon is a giant ball of stone! his fellow mice refuse to believe it could be made of anything other than cheese. When a letter arrives confirming his lunar declaration and inviting him to the Smithsonian, the mouse makes the journey to the museum, where he finds a small room devoted to mouse aviation history. Inspired, the mouse decides he will design his own flying machine and travel to the moon something not even humans have yet accomplished. Kuhlmann intermixes beautiful wordless spreads and paragraphs of text as the mouse studies, sketches, builds, and ultimately takes to the skies. Rich with adventure and the spirit of discovery, the text rightfully declares, Nothing is too difficult for a clever mouse! A concluding history of space travel adds context for the story, highlighting key events and individuals human and otherwise.--Smith, Julia Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Kuhlmann's Lindbergh: The Tale of a Flying Mouse is a hard act to follow, but this companion book doesn't disappoint. Its young mouse hero is plagued by difficulties from the moment he resolves to explore space. Although he finds an ally in an elderly mouse at the Smithsonian (the mouse from Lindbergh grown old, readers will conclude), he loses his workshop and most of his designs in a fire, then has to elude G-men in fedoras who pursue him on arson charges. The agents and their German shepherds are on the mouse's heels as he launches his tin-can rocket through the chimney. His mission is a success, though only the mice know about it-until human astronauts land on the moon and discover a tiny flag. As with the previous book, Kuhlmann's artwork is the real star. Every spread is drafted with remarkable imaginative power (the mouse's handsewn spacesuit enchants, as does an early experimental vessel, a firecracker attached to a roller skate), while the space scenes are NASA-worthy. This adventure will easily win Kuhlmann even more fans. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-6-Uniquely similar in artistic design and writing style to Kuhlmann's Lindbergh: The Tale of a Flying Mouse, this title relates the story of another clever mouse's fascination with the moon, which, his telescope shows him, is actually "a giant ball of stone"-not the big ball of cheese that his friends say it is. An invitation to visit the Smithsonian Museum and its room full of mouse-size flying machines and some encouraging advice from an old gray mouse docent ("Study human knowledge") fill the tiny inventor with the determination to pursue his dream of a moonshot adventure that even a catastrophic setback cannot subdue. But police detectives are on the mouse's trail; locating parts for his rocket and space capsule becomes a dangerous game. As the small rodent pulls on his spacesuit, the police arrive with their sniffing dogs, just in time to witness the successful blastoff up the chimney and into orbit. Kuhlmann's exquisitely rendered realistic illustrations-most in watercolor and pencil-are filled with minute details; annotated architectural renderings show each phase of the mouse's inventions, then pieces and parts, in photographic detail as various components are assembled. "A Short History of Space Travel" includes drawn and painted "photos" and bits of information about scientists, animals, and astronauts who were key figures in U.S. and Soviet space programs leading to the first moon landing. VERDICT This beautifully illustrated story is a feast for mind and eyes and a strong selection to complement STEAM curricula.-Susan Scheps, formerly at Shaker Public Library, OH © Copyright 2016. 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
In this hefty picture book, a determined mouse proves to his brethren that the moon is not made of cheese. He perfects a rocket for a lunar expedition while working under the noses of humans tackling space travel. Sepia-tinted paintings and wordless spreads evoke a sense of wonder and scale for the little astronaut's historic journey. "A Short History of Space Travel" is appended. (c) Copyright 2017. 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.
