Review by New York Times Review
CHRISTOPHER MYERS'S take on the greatest nonsense verse in the English-speaking world - a basketball face-off - combines brio and whimsy with more energy than a power forward. But doesn't shooting hoops with the Jubjub Bird and the Bandersnatch require an incredible leap of the imagination? Not as much as you might think. Myers's prodigious research on the history of "Jabberwocky" led him to Lewis Carroll's diaries, where, as he explains in an endnote, he discovered the word "ollamalitzli," written in the margin. Its Mesoamerican religious and ritual significance, he tells us, involves "a rubber ball and a stone hoop affixed high on a wall." So it's not much of a stretch to arrive at Myers's conceit that a precursor of a basketball court is what Lewis Carroll had in mind as a setting for his mock epic poem. Myers's giant Jabberwock would put LeBron to shame. He palms the ball like a walnut and dunks like Yao Ming on stilts. Inexplicably, he is depicted with 12 fingers on one page and 13 on another. Or is it 14? No matter. He's a presence, as they say in the broadcasters' booth, and seemingly invincible until the boy hero appears with vorpal sneakers ("the vorpal blade went snicker-snack!") in hand. The big lout "came whiffling through the tulgey wood" - the outdoor court - "and burbled as it came!" But the kid, an implacable foe, knows a thing or two about snicker-snack. The game is over in short order, and the boy gallops triumphantly ("galumphing") back to his father. Carroll's classic appeared in his "Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There." "It seems very pretty," Alice said, "but it's rather hard to understand!" True, the poem has been "explained" in numerous ways. Even Carroll's and Humpty Dumpty's views of various words often diverge. But searching for meaning may be beside the point. Nonsense, T.S. Eliot reminded us, is not an absence of sense but a parody of it. Some of the portmanteau words Carroll invented - chortle, burble, frabjous and others - are now fully vested members of the lexicon. And the verse's structure is a mirror, as Alice discovered, of classical English poetry. But that should not detract from Myers's inventive and colorful homage. Award-winning books like "Blues Journey," "Jazz" and "Harlem," his Caldecott Honor book (these three were written by his father, Walter Dean Myers), have earned for Myers's art a grand and growing reputation. His "Jabberwocky" reflects once more his signature style and his willingness to take risks. Myers can rest easy under the Tumtum tree, while his imagery could make you believe that somewhere in Mount Cemetery in Surrey, England, Lewis Carroll is attempting a graceful spin move. J. Patrick Lewis is the author of many children's books, including "The Brothers' War" and "Michelangelo's World."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves . . . . " begins Carroll's famous nonsense poem, which has inspired many visual interpretations over the years. Santore's illustrations create a classic man-versus-monster drama, while reflecting the artist's research into the possible meanings of the words, his vivid visual imagination, and his skill in making an elusive notion into a series of intense, idealized paintings grounded by realistic details. The main action takes place in an old forest strangely populated with parrots, tortoises, and long, lean European badgers as well as a large, disturbingly toothy Jubjub bird, a slobbering but powerful warthog/tiger mash-up known as the Bandersnatch, and, of course, the dreaded Jabberwock, depicted as an enormous dragon with fiery eyes. The hero is depicted as a man neither young nor old but careworn, even when he manages a smile as the "beamish boy," who "chortled in his joy." The skillful use of color, light, and shadow makes the setting look otherworldly and the dramatic scenes all the more powerful. A vivid interpretation of the classic poem.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This slick version of the classic nonsense poem from Through the Looking Glass seems more a Disney souvenir than a book to snuggle up with. Angular textural sketches, apparently rough drafts for an animated feature (many possess a Fantasia -like sensibility), are set against an overpowering black background that negates the tale's playfulness. Multiple frames on several pages make the (rather feeble) scenario difficult to follow, while the fabled, fearsome beast is here only silly--with its beaky, birdish head atop a caterpillary cover, it resembles a Chinese New Year parade's dragon or a Mardi Gras costume. When the victorious hero goes ``galumphing back'' with only the Jabberwock's head, youngsters may not realize that the weird animal is actually slain. Overall, this repackaging appears devoid of personality, and doesn't do justice to the comical original. These mome raths and mimsy borogroves deserve better. All ages. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2--4--The nonsense poem of Lewis Carroll is brought to life as a long-haired warrior wearing a loincloth, both hands grasped around the hilt of a sword, stares into the distance. Badgers, tortoise, and parrots "gyre and gimble in the wabe," moving in every direction around a sundial in a forest scene bathed in golden light. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!" is paired with a full-page bird's-eye view of a dry riverbed with enormous footprints, conveying a sense of danger. The Jubjub bird and Bandersnatch fill the pages as a menacing pterodactyl-looking bird and warthog. Soon the Jabberwocky appears, here a slathering dragon with sharp teeth and golden eyes. The warrior, small in size compared to the Jabberwocky, pulls back his sword and triumphs over the beast as he stands atop the severed head. Finally, arms raised in victory, the warrior is depicted with a laurel-leaf crown against a blazing orange background: "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" The beast is vanquished and the warrior is triumphant.VERDICT For those who like their nonsense epic and just a bit gory, the large scale scenes of glowering creatures and a triumphant warrior give new life to the poem.--Ramarie Beaver, formerly at Plano P.L., TX
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
The uninspired art has a frenetic quality that does nothing to enhance this classic, enigmatic poem; its interpretation is still best left to one's imagination. From HORN BOOK 1992, (c) Copyright 2010. 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
A young hero takes on a truly humongous monster in the late Santore's final, probably, and most melodramatic set of illustrations. Nobly posed in a three-quarter-length portrait at the beginning, the White-presenting hero looks more wiry than ripped for all his bare chest and granite jaw--not the most likely sort to stand a chance against the immense, slavering, crocodilian beast that pounces in the climactic double gatefold. Still, one hack of the jeweled vorpal blade later, the creature's minivan-sized head lies in a pool of gore. (How the hero contrives to go galumphing back with it is left to the imagination, as in the next scene he's already raising his arms in triumph amid a cloud of parrotlike slithy toves to a chortled offstage "Callooh! Callay!") Being positively crowded with artfully detailed tortoises, sundials, and badgerlike creatures with long, pointy noses, the dim and mossy tulgey wood makes a properly surreal setting; for extra monster thrills the artist inserts separate outsized views of the likewise slavering Bandersnatch, part boar and part tiger, and a fantastically plumed and toothy Jubjub bird that looks as if it could have a T. rex for breakfast. In his note the artist discusses his approach to the nonsense poem and properly echoes Martin Gardner's Annotated Alice in encouraging readers to realize that "the words mean what they sound." 'Tis a brillig sendoff; fans of all things toothy and terrifying will gyre and gimble in its wabe. (Picture book poem. 6-10) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
