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    Gorky Rises
    Gorky Rises
    Gorky Rises
    Ebook35 pages1 hour

    Gorky Rises

    By William Steig

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    One fresh and fair summer day, as soon as his parents go out, Gorky sets up his laboratory by the kitchen sink to have another try at concocting a magic potion. This time he strikes upon the missing ingredient--half a bottle of his mother's attar of roses--and he knows it's success at last.
    While he is waiting for the bubbly, glinting liquid to show what it can do, he heads over to Elephant Rock, "his best spot for doing nothing." But on the way he stops to bask in the sun, soon falls asleep--and wakes to find himself floating in the immensely blue sky, clutching his bottle of magic.
    There follows the most astonishing, bewildering, and bedazzling adventure a young frog could possibly have. Orbiting the globe has its ups and downs, however, and Gorky soon begins to wonder if he'll ever get back to earth. He does manage to outwit the magic; but the potion saves a last surprise until Gorky reaches Elephant Rock, just on day later than he had planned.

    Gorky Rises is a 1980 New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year, Notable Children's Book of the Year, and Outstanding Book of the Year.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJul 30, 2013
    ISBN9781466808607
    Gorky Rises
    Author

    William Steig

    William Steig (1907-2003) was a cartoonist, illustrator and author of award-winning books for children, including Shrek!, on which the DreamWorks movies are based. Steig was born in New York City. Every member of his family was involved in the arts, and so it was no surprise when he decided to become an artist. He attended City College and the National Academy of Design. In 1930, Steig’s work began appearing in The New Yorker, where his drawings have been a popular fixture ever since. He published his first children's book, Roland the Minstrel Pig, in 1968. In 1970, Steig received the Caldecott Medal for Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. His books for children also include Dominic; The Real Thief; The Amazing Bone, a Caldecott Honor Book; Amos & Boris, a National Book Award finalist; and Abel's Island and Doctor De Soto, both Newbery Honor Books. Steig's books have also received the Christopher Award, the Irma Simonton Black Award, the William Allen White Children's Book Award, and the American Book Award. His European awards include the Premio di Letteratura per l'infanzia (Italy), the Silver Pencil Award (the Netherlands), and the Prix de la Fondation de France. On the basis of his entire body of work, Steig was selected as the 1982 U.S. candidate for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for Illustration and subsequently as the 1988 U.S. candidate for Writing. Steig also published thirteen collections of drawings for adults, beginning with About People in 1939, and including The Lonely Ones, Male/Female, The Agony in the Kindergarten, and Our Miserable Life. He died in Boston at the age of 95.

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    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Once again, Steig, that master of child's eye wonder, deliberately and beautifully fails to cater to adult sensibilities, as do those authors whose child characters "wake up" to find that nothing magical really happened or who are left on the last page with no proof and disbelieving parents. Steig instead concentrates on the free-flowing mentality that allows a story about kitchen mixing to turn into an elephant genesis story (100% "Just So" free - there is no reason or moral attached to the elephant's creation), ending on a note similar to that of The Amazing Bone. The parents do go on with their quotidian lives, but they do so acknowledging the magic of the child's world. Given a choice between object lessons in disillusionment in which parents are proved right about the existential emptiness of the world, or the unconditional and admiring love of Steigian parents, I'll take Steig and his lovingly weird and wondrous myths coupled with bright and whimsical illustrations, every time.
    • 3/5
      Gorky the frog mixes a potion that makes him fly. He eventually lands on a rock, which becomes an elephant, and finds his way home to his incredulous parents.

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