The Hero of Little Street

by Gregory Rogers, Gregory Rogers (Illustrator)

Overview

Action, adventure, and time travel combine in the final book of an award-winning trilogy.

Narrowly escaping from a gang of bullies, a boy slips into a grand old gallery--the perfect hiding place, full of mystery and treasures. Suddenly, a painting comes to life and the boy finds himself on an adventure led by a mischievous dog that has leapt from the canvas. The two slip into a Vermeer painting and are transported to Little Street, Delft in seventeenth-century Holland, where the boy has to use every ounce of his ingenuity to rescue his new friend from an untimely fate.
The third book in the "Boy, Bear" series, The Hero of Little Street is packed with thrilling escapades from start to finish. Gregory Rogers's cast of much-loved characters come together once again in this triumph of visual storytelling.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466808874
Publisher:	Roaring Brook Press
Publication date:	03/27/2012
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	59 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Gregory Rogers is one of Australia's finest children's book illustrators and in 1995 was awarded the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal for Way Home by Libby Hathorn. His first book for Roaring Brook Press, The Boy, The Bear, The Baron, The Bard, was a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year. He divides his time between Brisbane, Australia and Denver, Colorado.

Editorial Reviews

Rogers' deft management of perspective and movement, his clever visual jokes and intertextual allusions, and his careful compositions demonstrate once again his masterful storytelling in the wordless genre.” —BCCB

“A delightful little excursion for busy imaginations.” —Booklist

“A superb, witty book that will appeal both to squirmy, clueless kids and educated art connoisseurs.” —Horn Book, starred

“Rogers's visual narrative is both an aesthetic treat and masterful storytelling.” —School Library Journal, starred

“All's well that ends well, as this frolic does, with a sublime comeuppance for all the bullies, then and now.” —Kirkus

From the Publisher

Rogers' Boy (from The Boy, the Bear, the Baron, the Bard, 2004, and A Midsummer Knight, 2007) returns for another wordless metafictive adventure, this one centering on Dutch painting. The action starts in modern-day Trafalgar Square, where the Boy dumps three other boys' soccer ball into a fountain and then flees to the National Gallery. After some aimless wandering, he's only a little astonished to find the scruffy little dog from van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait jumping out of the frame to play. The dog leads the Boy into Vermeer's Young Woman Seated at a Virginal and then into the titular Little Street of 17th-century Delft, Holland. Since young readers are probably even less likely to groove on Vermeer than on Shakespeare, who figured in the earlier titles, the romp must depend upon plenty of slapstick to keep them engaged--and it delivers. Small, comic-book–style panels convey the action, punctuated by breathtaking longshots of galleries and the streets and canals of Delft. Boy and dog career along, tripping up pedestrians and smashing blue-and-white crockery before running afoul of a sinister butcher (who resembles a certain Bard). There's nothing stuffy about this, despite its high-toned beginning: Rogers simply uses his own love of the art as a springboard for his endearing brand of foolery. All's well that ends well, as this frolic does, with a sublime comeuppance for all the bullies, then and now. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews