On My Street

by Koos Meinderts, Annette Fienieg (Illustrator)

Overview

At No. 1, Mrs. McQueen

Her house is large and painted green,
And inside there resides a Queen,
With royal ears and regal chin,
She always wears a noble grin.

For every child born to one of her friends, Annette Fienieg used to make a colorfully decorated teeshirt, with a character you would fall in love with.
Now it is time to introduce those creations - Mrs. McQueen Fifi LaPointe, Johnny Deck, Lightfingers Louie and more— to a wider audience.  From the same team who produced The Man in the Clouds.  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935954248
Publisher:	Lemniscaat USA
Publication date:	05/01/2013
Edition description:	Translatio
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	2 - 5 Years

About the Author

Koos Meinderts (1953) writes songs and poems, books, cabaret and theatre plays for adults as well as children. His books won several awards and one of them was nominated for the prestigious German Juvenile Literature Award.
 
Annette Fienieg (1959) has illustrated over eighty children's books, for instance most of the books her husband, Koos Meinderts, has written. She has won, amongst other prizes, the yearly Award of the Dutch Illustrators Guild.
 
Koos and Annette are a couple. With Lemniscaat USA, they published The Man in the Clouds, which won the 2012 Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award for outstanding contributions to children’s literature.
 

Editorial Reviews

The Dutch team behind The Man in the Clouds imagines a street of fantasy houses and the colorful characters that inhabit them; the houses appear on the left side of each spread, with a portrait of the owner and a short rhyme on the right. The charm of the crisp-edged, light-filled paintings lies in the way the neighbors are portrayed against type. “Lightfingers” Louie’s expression is calm and personable—yet he’s a thief. “Six-shooter James” the cowboy looks a little shy, and Mrs. McQueen the queen appears mild and a tad absentminded—a far cry from the haughty caricature it would have been easy to draw. There’s a ballet dancer in a gypsy caravan, an old woman in a knitted cottage, and even a goldfish bowl with a stout mermaid inside. Only the translation is puzzling. The too-facile verse is out of step with the delicacy of the portraits, as in the poem that accompanies the concluding portrait of Meinderts and Fienieg’s home: “The best house is last and it’s mine,/ Here I write poems that I think are quite fine.” Ages 2–up. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Man in the Clouds
“Simply divine […] Stop by to see The Man in the Clouds. It’s a visit you won’t soon forget.” – Kirkus Reviews
Winner of the Gelett Burgess Children's Book Award/Society and Culture

From the Publisher

PreS-Gr 2—Meinderts takes readers on a tour of his street, introducing his rather quirky neighbors. Eleven houses total-the final one being his own home that he shares with Fienieg, the book's illustrator. Youngsters meet characters like Lightfingers Louie, a thief who lives in a house that looks like a jail; Charlie Noble, a sailor who lives in a house that looks like a boat; and Merry Maide, a mermaid who lives in a fishbowl with her four fish. Each character is described in a short poem of two rhyming couplets. The verses are simple and sometimes a bit awkward, which might have resulted from the translation. For example, "A dancer lives at number three,/She floats on air just like a bee./On many stages has she danced,/From circus tent to Paris, France!" The illustrations are bright watercolors, each image inviting readers to pause and examine it for the silly little details. A sweet, quick read.—Jennifer Miskec, Longwood University, Farmville, VA

School Library Journal

This hit-or-miss rhyming catalog of the neighbors who live on the narrators' (ostensibly the author and illustrator's) street may leave readers wishing for more detail. The unusual neighborhood features some true characters, each with a home that matches their occupation or personality. "Lightfingers" Louie lives at Number 2, and his concrete home includes bars on the windows, floodlights all around and a second-story balcony edged with barbed wire. The dancer lives in a Romani wagon–type house, while sailor Charlie Noble lives in a boat-shaped dwelling. Other residents include a cowboy, a queen, a cook and a man who has filled his house with empty bottles. The rhymes and rhythms mostly work, though the verses are too short to really introduce the eccentric neighbors: "Our Auntie, named Fritzi MacFluff, / Lives with her kitties, Sniffy and Snuff. / Her house is all knitted from yarn, / But you'll find she gives not a darn!" Fienieg paints vivid portraits of the eclectic homes on the left-hand pages, their occupants opposite them. But a few may have readers (and parents) scratching their heads: Mr. Cree drinks tea and his house has distinct rounded towers--Middle Eastern? Russian? Or are they tea cozies? And in her fishbowl home, the Merry Maide's voluptuous bosoms are not entirely contained within her seashells. The inhabitants of Number 11 have crafted an enticing world, but there isn't enough here to invite readers back for a second visit. (Picture book. 4-6)

Kirkus Reviews