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Priceman, Marjorie
7 Reviews
(2)
K-3
Priceman's breezy text and freely painted gouache illustrations celebrate America's products and diversity. A girl criss-crosses the U.S. collecting raw materials for a Fourth of July treat. She makes the needed tools ("Melt the sand until it liquefies" for a glass cup) and bakes a pie (recipe included). Readers will enjoy learning about the far-flung sources of ordinary items.
Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
November, 2008
(3)
K-3
Princess Nicki--a.k.a. Picky--refuses to eat vegetables, despite the bribes offered by the inventive royal staff. A wizard, however, uses Nicki's own wishes (to be tall, to have long hair) to persuade her to eat her veggies (because spinach will make her big and strong, broccoli will make her hair grow, etc.). Loose, ripply images in golds, oranges, and blues gracefully track the princess's conversion.
Reviewer: Frieda F. Bostian
(4)
PS
Illustrated by
Bruce Foster.
Priceman's retelling of the traditional tale features sumptuous colors, elaborate pop-ups, and a long version of the story, in which the grandmother is eaten by the wolf and Red Riding Hood saves her by inducing the wolf to sneeze and eject the unharmed Grandma. The art is handsome, but the story is overly detailed and loses the flavor of an oral tale.
Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth
(2)
K-3
A scatterbrained inventor has a mishap with every turn of the page. The episodic plot serves as a springboard for a set of lessons on color theory and optical illusions. Playful cut-paper collage, accented by loose black line drawings, work well to illustrate most of these concepts. Priceman provides simple explanations (in small print) within the story, wisely waiting until the end to explain the more mysterious and complex effects.
Reviewer: Lolly Robinson
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
July, 2001
(3)
K-3
Froggie sets off to marry Ms. Mouse, who lives above a cheese shop on the Upper West Side. Auntie Rat is against the match, so when a feline wedding guest eats her, the period of mourning is brief. The humor lies primarily in knowing how different this version of the folksong is from more traditional ones. Priceman's lively, colorful paintings spill off the pages and appropriately reflect the celebratory atmosphere of the rhyming text.
Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth
(2)
K-3
In a rambunctious parody, Ms. Splinter takes her class to the circus and devotes the entire performance to expounding on the "great learning experience" they're having--completely unaware that one of her students has been lifted into the ring by an elephant and is being tossed from one act to another. Priceman captures the show's frenzied grace in freely painted forms that dance and swirl in a richly saturated palette.
Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
May, 1999
(3)
K-3
In her journal, Clio the cat (now in her ninth life) describes how, in her previous eight lives, she identified constellations in ancient Mesopotamia, sailed with the Vikings to America, and invented the parachute in 1795 France. Priceman's sketchy ink and watercolor drawings (attributed to Clio) contribute to the quirky scrapbook-like design.
Reviewer: Patricia Riley
7 reviews
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