Shibumi and the Kitemaker

Leigh Forrest

This is one picture book for older children that have gained such popularity in the past few years. It is an eloquet text with substance. The illustrations are full color paintings, richly detail with Japanese imagery. The story and pictures combine to make a haunting, but satisfying book.
— ForeWord

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

After a decade-long absence, Mayer returns to picture books, using computer-generated graphics to illustrate an original tale set in long-ago Japan. When the emperor's daughter, Shibumi, discovers the poverty-stricken world beyond her garden walls, she longs to resolve the inequity. Tying herself to an enormous kite fashioned for her by the royal kite-maker, she takes flight, telling her father that she will not come down until the city below "is as beautiful as the palace, or the palace is as squalid as the city." Wealthy noblemen who wish to preserve the status quo mount an attack, and the kite carries off both Shibumi and the kite-maker. The bereaved emperor spends his years trying to make amends, and in the end a young samurai sets out to find the princess and restore her to her father and the transformed city. Mayer grounds his message in familiar fairy tale elements, and proceeds at a leisurely pace. His computer art approaches the brooding style of his paintings in East of the Sun & West of the Moon (as opposed to his Little Critter books, for example). Compositions using traditional Japanese images, from cherry blossoms and cranes to paper lanterns, lavish kimonos and bonsai trees, are set off against a series of slightly surreal backdrops. Some will associate this art with the souped-up visuals of CD-ROM action games; others will find the mix of elements haunting. All ages. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Gr 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 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

In this moving tale from Mayer, an emperor chooses to isolate his daughter Shibumi from the squalor of the city by walling her in his palace and gardens. Inevitably, Shibumi peeks over the wall, and is horrified by the poverty she sees. She convinces a kitemaker to build a kite big enough to lift her, and then fly it and her into the air, threatening her father that she won't come down until he cleans up the city. When her father tries to have the kitemaker killed, the winds sweep both Shibumi and the kitemaker far away. Time passes, the emperor repents and cleans up his city, but war and old age sneak up on him. He longs for the return of his daughter, and doesn't know that a young samurai is about to make his wish come true. Mayer's lush illustrations—computer-generated collages of paintings, fabrics, and photographs—share in the narration of the story, e.g., readers, with the emperor, see both the shadow of the kite returning with Shibumi and the samaurai, and its reflection in a nearby pond, but not the kite itself. Such visual nuances heighten the suspense of the storytelling and add a level of sophistication rare for a picture book. (Picture book. 4-8)