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Summary
Summary
Ever feel like you need a hug, a really big hug from someone? That's how Felipe the young cactus feels, but his family just isn't the touchy-feely kind. Cactuses can be quite prickly sometimes you know . . . and so can Felipe. But he'll be darned if this one pointy issue will hold him back, so one day Felipe sets off on his own to find a friend and just maybe, that long awaited hug.
In her debut picture book, Simona Ciraola creates an endearing tale of friendship, beautifully illustrated with buoyant wit and the perfect story to share.
Author Notes
Simona Ciraolo is a Sardinian born author and illustrator whose buoyantly witty and endearing tales recently won her the Sebastian Walker Award.
Ciraolo studied animation at the National Film School in Turin, Italy, before moving to the United Kingdom where she undertook an MA in children's book illustration at the Cambridge School of Art. She has also worked as a freelance 2D animator for children's TV shows and illustrated five picture books for an independent Italian publisher.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Felipe's family is more interested in decorum than in the display of physical or emotional affection. Time to call child protective services? Well, no, since Felipe and his clan are cacti-prickliness is part of their nature. That doesn't stop Felipe from trying to satisfy his craving for a hug, a search that leads him to leave home and eventually become a hermit, unable to find anyone willing to hug him. There's a coy relationship between the text and artwork in Italian-born author/illustrator Ciraolo's U.S. debut. Nowhere does she mention that Felipe and his family are cactuses, instead letting the artwork fill in the details. For example, a "bold and confident" friend Felipe makes early on is revealed to be a deranged-looking yellow balloon; "Cactus Attack" screams a newspaper headline after "disaster" strikes ("Felipe was blamed and made to feel very bad"). Ciraolo's softly drawn cartoon cacti radiate charm-Felipe has a tiny pink flower on his head and a range of emotive expressions. While the story ends abruptly with Felipe meeting a craggy new companion, endpapers give readers a taste of the fun their friendship promises. Ages 3-7. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
All Felipe wants is a hugtrouble is, Felipe is a cactus. Not only is he a cactus, his family members are terrible snobs who "[believe] one should never trespass into another's personal space." They are also a great variety of cactus types, but what they lack in botanical consistency they make up for in an unfriendly uniformity of expression. Felipe appears to be a baby barrel cactus, with one bright pink flower atop his head. He is a lot less interested in "reach[ing] a high position," as his family tells him he will, than in just getting a hug. His family not being "the touchy feely type," he just has to hope that somebody else will come along. One day he makes friends with a balloon, with disastrous results. (The headlines read "Cactus Attack: Balloon in Hospital" and "Shame on the Family.") He uproots himself to find companionship (his bare stump looks amusingly like tighty whiteys, and he walks on impossibly tiny pipe-stem legs). He resigns himself to life as a hermit till one day he hears weeping: It is Camilla, a lonely rock, and at last Felipe gets his hug. Ciraola tells her story with wry understatement, allowing her expressive illustrations to carry the narrative. Her palette is greens and pinks against cream-colored negative space with a few sandy pebbles added to situate Felipe and his family in their desert habitat. Though Felipe's not the first prickly children's-book character ever to want a hug, he certainly is a charmer. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
New York Review of Books Review
WE'VE ALL BEEN there at some point. Feeling a little out of place, unnoticed. If we were lucky, perhaps we met someone who, though very different, complemented us. Maybe we met a Jim and, like Huck Finn, left our familiar though confining small town; maybe we were Maude seeking companionship in a boy named Harold; maybe we were Joe Buck, the midnight cowboy in a city that never sleeps, who befriended the lowliest of the low, Ratso Rizzo. Four new picture books tell stories about friends who vanquish loneliness. In the warmly illustrated "Little Elliot, Big City," a lap-dog-size elephant named Elliot finds difficulty negotiating a metropolis - in his case, a glamorous 1940s New York City. He has trouble turning door handles, which he can barely touch with his trunk, and reaching into his freezer for food, which he pushes out with a broomstick. He can't catch a cab; one splashes him as it drives through a puddle. What Elliot really wants is a cupcake - but the attendant at the bakery doesn't notice him. In fact, no one notices this tiny elephant, despite the fact that he is white with blue and pink polka dots (he's a precursor, in a way, to Joe Buck, whose cowboy hat and shirt barely catch the attention of New Yorkers). The author-illustrator Mike Curato, making his picture book debut, beautifully renders the images in rich earth tones that are soft and smooth, calling to mind "The Sweetest Fig," by Chris Van Allsburg (whose newest book I'll get to in a bit), which was set in Paris, also in a bygone era. In a two-page spread, hordes of men and women wearing hats and overcoats wait on a subway platform, everyone in shadows, with a pale Elliot on the bottom, protecting himself, "careful not to be stepped on." Perhaps the most bittersweet moment in the book is an illustration of Elliot, defeated, walking against pedestrian traffic on a sidewalk. A smiling little blond girl turns to him, but he is not aware. Returning from the bakery emptyhanded, "Elliot was so sad that he barely noticed a thing," Curato writes; yet the elephant nevertheless catches sight of something smaller than he is trying to climb up a garbage can - a white mouse, desperately searching for food. With his trunk, Elliot lifts him to the top of the garbage can, where his new friend nibbles on a slice of pizza. Soon the two are back at the bakery, with the mouse, riding on Elliot's trunk, reaching to give the attendant a dollar bill. Elliot finally gets his cupcake, "and something even better." The final pages show a darkened building with the Manhattan Bridge in the background and, in one of the two yellow-lit windows, Elliot and the mouse sitting at the kitchen table sharing the cupcake. Two other unlikely friends come together in "Hug Me," by the Italian author Simona Ciraolo. She uses whimsical, jagged colored-pencil drawings to portray Felipe, a young cactus who just wants someone to wrap his arms around But, coming from "an old and famous" family of cacti, he knows they're the last people he can expect affection from. Ciraolo uses ample white space to set in relief the prickliness of the cactus family, and to signal the impending tragedy when Felipe meets someone he hopes will be his first friend - someone who "was bold, confident, ... and he was trouble." In short: a big yellow balloon. You can imagine what happens. Ciraolo is playful in a very Italian way as she shows how Felipe's mishap disgraces his relatives. Even the newspaper headline - written in red - declares his shame: "CACTUS ATTACK." Felipe moves away from his family, trying unsuccessfully to befriend squirrels and dogs and building his own house, fenced in from the world. When he hears weeping in the distance, Felipe knows what he needs to do: "Someone else was feeling lonely too." He searches out the crying voice and comes upon a rock named Camilla. Who says a rock feels no pain? And here Felipe envelops the rock with his prickly arms. (Your child, as did mine, will immediately understand that the rock is the only thing that can't be hurt by the spines.) Some friends simply want to help others who they feel have been left out. In "A Good Home for Max," Tabi, a mouse who wears a blue cap, takes care of a little store after hours. Every day a toy goes home with an owner - all except Max, a sweet dog with a sour face. Trying to make the frowning Max appealing to some child, Tabi dresses him up in festive attire - an inner tube in summer, a party hat in winter. Nothing works, and "Max is always by his side." Finally Tabi dresses Max in a hat just like his own, though red. One evening, Max is gone. Tabi sneaks into a delivery truck that takes him through the little village, hoping to find him. When he returns to the shop, crestfallen, he looks out to see Max sitting in the window of the house across the street, smiling. Every night to come, we're told, "when Tabi is done straightening the shop, he visits Max across the street." Some young readers may not understand the message at first, and will wonder why Tabi is going through all this trouble to get rid of his best friend, but parents will register the emotional push-pull of Tabi's conflict. Junzo Terada, a Japanese artist known for his postcards and mobiles, uses rich patterns of cheerful colors for his wood-block-style illustrations, and his sophisticated artwork, as well, maybe appreciated even more by parents than children. As the two-time Caldecott Medal winner Chris Van Allsburg's newest book suggests, some lonely creatures just need to strike out on their own. In "The Misadventures of Sweetie Pie," the title character is a squirmy hamster, who is pawned off from one unsuitable child to another. Each time his cage passes into the hands of another owner, he catches a glimpse of fresh air, and of freedom. While Van Allsburg's pen-and-ink drawings don't have the shadowing and dusky tones of some of his previous books, the story is itself a dark one. Using bright, pastel colors, he utilizes his familiar close croppings and dramatic angles to depict, say, a dog's mouth latching on to the cage, or a girl with a downright evil look on her face who puts Sweetie Pie in a dress, then into a hamster ball, and then - devastating - forgets about him outside. Yet it's not the only time a child abandons him. In the final instance, a boy puts the cage down to play a game of catch, but leaves him there overnight in falling snow. When the boy uncovers the cage the next day, Sweetie Pie is gone. In a final spread, we see the boy in springtime, still upset, looking around for the lost hamster; but up above Sweetie Pie frolics in a tree hollow with squirrels who have befriended him. The last image is somewhat primordial, with Sweetie Pie standing at the tree hole looking down, almost as if from a "Planet of the Apes" movie. Up until the ending, it's all pretty disturbing; after all, conventional wisdom says, what fluffy animal doesn't need a child to care for it? But then, sometimes misfits - and the neglected - rebel, escape and create their own, better, world. MARK ROTELLA, senior editor at Publishers Weekly, is the author of "Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria" and "Amore: The Story of Italian American Song."