God Bless the Gargoyles

by Dav Pilkey, Dav Pilkey (Illustrator)

Overview

Gargoyles have been feared and misunderstood for centuries, but now Caldecott Honor artist Dav Pilkey tells the real story of these gentle stone creatures come to life.

Behind their cold, stone faces, gargoyles have warm, loving souls -- yet most people don't look deeply enough to notice. Angels can see the good inside them, though, and tonight the angels will sweep down to take their silent, stone friends on a magical journey, hand in hand.Caldecott Honor artist Dav Pilkey's lyrical tale of these gentle stone creatures come to life is a reminder that everyone -- from the grievers to the dreamers to the believers -- is worthy of love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781338095586
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	08/30/2016
Sold by:	Scholastic, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	37 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

When Dav Pilkey was a kid, he was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia. Dav was so disruptive in class that his teachers made him sit out in the hallway every day. Luckily, Dav loved to draw and make up stories. He spent his time in the hallway creating his own original comic books -- the very first adventures of Dog Man and Captain Underpants. In the second grade, Dav's teacher ripped up his comics and told him he couldn't spend the rest of his life making silly books. Fortunately, Dav was not a very good listener.

Editorial Reviews

Angels befriend the grotesque church guardians in this comforting story. "Pilkey imbues these dreamy vistas with electricity, the skin-prickling feeling of witnessing a special event," said PW. All ages. (Aug.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Pilkey (The Paperboy, p. 141, etc.) joins the medieval fray with a bucolic approach to the journey of gargoyles from the cathedrals of the Middle Ages to modern cityscapes.

The half-comic, half-grotesque, goblin-like animals and monsters from medieval religious art, once representing evil and temptation from a dragon-infested underworld, here become contemporary symbols of the misunderstood, in contrast to the spooky black-and-white gargoyles in Eve Bunting and David Wiesner's Night of the Gargoyles (1994). In rhyming pairs of couplets, Pilkey tells of the lonely, the lost, the left behind, all in lowercase type: "god bless the ones who sing everything wrong/god bless the ones who do not belong." Blue angels rescue shadowy gargoyles and wing their way amidst cathedrals and stained glass windows, above skyscrapers, across a deep blue-and-purple night. Pilkey infuses his skies with much of the same fantasy inventiveness as Chagall; however, the solitary spread that pinpoints a specific setting creates for readers a visual pun of sorts—gargoyles hover as witnesses to angels who land in the well-known Edward Hopper painting of a diner, Night Hawks. Perhaps the quintessential American image of loneliness and isolation, the scene proves "that the souls of the lost weren't really alone." The constrained cadences are more statement than story, weighing down the lilting paintings with their hopeful but heavy message. Still, readers will find solace in this modern-day answer to existentialism.

Kirkus Reviews

"A book for all seasons." — Family Life"A prime instance of how to teach morality without inculcating morals." — The New Yorker"Pilkey's exuberant artwork... [and] optimistic message [are] easy to embrace." — Publishers Weekly"Brilliantly hued... dramatic pictures." — School Library Journal"Readers will find solace in this modern-day answer to existentialism." — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher