Best TV Shows
Doug
Featuring a level of drawing you'd find in
the best kids' books, this show about a shy but sturdy boy stood in
sweet rebuke to the crassness of most kids' programming this year.
— Ken Tucker
Pirates of the Dark Water
Vivid, detailed animation; literary
storytelling; a swashbuckling adventure with convincing chills and
thrills — how did this find its way onto the most banal
Saturday-morning schedule in recent memory?
— KT
Best Videos
The Tiger and the Brahmin
Everything about this
production rates a rave, from the story set in India (about truth and
responsibility) to the dramatic narrative (by Ben Kingsley) and the
evocative music (composed and performed by Ravi Shankar). Changing
perspectives give the illusion of motion to Kurt Vargo's
illustrations.
— Jeff Unger
The Robert McCloskey Library
This anthology succeeds partly because
of author-illustrator Robert McCloskey's attention to visual detail.
Although only one of the five stories is animated, inventive camera
work enlivens the others, including the timeless Make Way for
Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal.
— JU
The Sweater
The lushly animated title story, one of three in this
wonderful collection, humorously conveys a man's reminiscence of
what he put up with as a 10-year-old forced to wear a hockey jersey
of a team despised in his town. The Ride, a wordless color film,
focuses on a chauffeur's wild daydream about what could happen to his
absentminded boss. Getting Started offers a look at the perils of
procrastination.
— JU
Best Books
Tar Beach
Faith Ringgold
This
picture book about an African-American girl in Harlem is a
celebration of optimism. From the ''tar beach'' of a tenement roof,
Cassie flies over her neighborhood, dreaming a splendid future. The
pictures are based on Ringgold's ''story quilt'' about her own life.
— Michele Landsberg
The Salamander Room
Anne Mazer; illustrated by Steve
Johnson
In a playful dialogue between a
boy and his mother, the child elaborates on a daydream of bringing a
whole forest into his room to make a home for a salamander.
Shimmering pictures reinforce the subtle message of delight in
nature.
— ML
Lyddie
Katherine Paterson
Lyddie
is a terrific heroine: brave, hardworking, painfully growing out of
her childlike dreams and into heartening, adult-size ones. The
background is 19th-century New England and the brutally exploitive
textile mills where Lyddie drudges for a living. Exciting and
poignant, Lyddie is a deeply involving novel.
— ML
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