Shibumi and the Kitemaker - Hardcover

Mercer Mayer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0761450548 ISBN 13: 9780761450542

Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Corp/Ccb, 1999

Synopsis

After seeing the disparity between the conditions of her father's palace and the city beyond its walls, the Emperor's daughter has the royal kitemaker build a huge kite to take her away from it all.

About this title

About the Author:

Mercer Mayer has been writing and illustrating children's books for over 35 years. He began the popular Little Critter series nearly 30 years ago and titled the first book Just for You. His wife, Gina, has been co-writing the series since the early 1990s. The books in this series address the major issues of growing up through humorous storytelling.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 1-3 In a faraway kingdom, Princess Shibumi, the emperor's only daughter, grows up in a walled garden, innocent of the evils of the world. One day, she climbs the high wall and sees squalor and poverty in the city below. Shocked and saddened, Shibumi devises a plan to fight the injustice she knows her father has condoned. She persuades the royal kitemaker to construct a kite large enough to carry her into the sky, where she vows to stay until her father makes the city as beautiful as the palace. Years later, a young samurai embarks on a quest to find the lost princess, bringing the tale to its bittersweet conclusion. The book's artistic style and design resemble Jay Williams's original fantasy set in China, Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like (Macmillan, 1984), illustrated by Mayer. Like that book, the overall artistic sensibility is far more Western than Asian. The art, created by various computer programs, influenced by comic books and the visual look of samurai films, contains both accurate and inaccurate images. The artistic style is massive and full of details, both relevant and irrelevant, where Japanese art is delicate and suggestive. On some pages, the features of the main characters, particularly the old kitemaker, are modeled by line and soft shading, in contrast to the flat background, a style that becomes melodramatic, almost grotesque. While the colors are dark, verging on muddy, and the composition is overly complicated, the story line is good. Margaret A. Chang, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Corp/Ccb
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0761450548
• ISBN 13: 9780761450542
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 48
• Illustrator: Mercer Mayer