Violet and Victor Reviews
Violet and Victor Write
the Most Fabulous Fairy Tale
“These twins bicker, but ultimately come to terms with one another, coauthoring a compelling story wherein an evil witch is overcome with compelling fairytales. As Victor speaks in orange and writes on orange paper, and Violet in purple, the dialogue and text will be easily followed by young readers. The illustrations are breathtaking and strikingly original, making use of recycled reference material, such as the text of Oedipus used in the witch’s castle. The illustrations more than do their job in enhancing the theme of twins as authors. A follow-up to last year’s Violet and Victor Write the Best-Ever Bookworm Book (Little, Brown, 2014), this particular story has its own beginning, middle, and end, and appears not to lean on its predecessor in any way.”
– School Library Connection
“Violet and Victor are back in this follow-up to Violet and Victor Write the Best-Ever Bookworm Book (2014). The twins (Violet is six minutes older—it’s important) are once again at odds. Creative, exuberant Violet wants to write “the most fabulous fairy tale in the history of fairy tales,” while pragmatic Victor (“Talking frogs don’t exist”) wants to write about real amazing animals from Australia. Piece by piece and with more than a little arguing—the twins cobble together a story that showcases both. The mixed-media illustrations are dynamic and fun. The fantastical elements are portrayed as cut-paper collages: a dragon is folded from a map, a castle is designed with layered storybook pages, and more. Violet’s contributions are hand lettered on purple paper, while Victor’s are orange, making it easy to keep track of which twin writes which part. The siblings may spat, but they make a good team: as soon as their fictional selves fly off on a large cockatoo (because dragons don’t exist), it’s clear that all will be well.”
– Booklist
“Twins Violet and Victor are back for another bout of collaborative (and sometimes competitive) writing. Violet, who loves writing and storytelling, sets about creating “the most fabulous fairy tale in the history of fairy tales.” Victor, engrossed in his project about Australian animals, pooh-poohs make-believe. The twins spar in text type that’s color-coded with their T-shirts—violet (natch) and orange, respectively. The tale they jointly create is written on rectangles of lavender or orange notebook paper, hand-lettered by the artist. Violet’s rather schmaltzy start (“Fairy Tale Kingdom is a marvelous place”) gets a jolt when Victor inserts a wicked witch who’s annoyed over the portrayal of witches in fairy tales. She bans them, banishing “Princess Violet to an island in Fairy Tale Ocean. Violet could never write another fairy tale.” Dismayed but undaunted, Violet recovers, regaling the witch with minitales of talented, happy, generous witches who bake cakes to share (with much-loved Australian animals, in fact). Murguia layers digital compositions with printed pages, doilies, maps, and swirls of stippled paint. Dark blue-greens and purples signal the fairy tale’s arc, while white space is employed for the twins in situ. Their faces and skinny limbs loosely sketched against white space, the two join the marketplace’s growing legion of cartoonish, de facto-Caucasian characters. A jam-packed view of the creative process of two imaginative siblings.”
– Kirkus
‘Writing a book becomes easy with a little help. Readers will take a whimsical adventure with Violet and her twin brother Victor as they collaborate to write the best-ever book. Each of their voices is heard as they discover the joys of making a story come alive. Victor likes scary, creepy things, while Violet prefers ideas that are sweet and cute. Their goal is to save the library from the hungry bookworm. Their concerted effort results in a creative story and the sweetest tale ever. The illustrations are true to the color-coded text and are fun to view.”
– School Library Connection
Violet and Victor Write
the Best-Ever Bookworm Book
“Victor is content to play with his pet-worm collection, but his twin sister, Violet, wants to create a book with her brother’s help, because he has “good ideas.” She insists on his assistance, and he begins dictating a mystery about a library book with missing pages, while Violet edits and writes it all down. Fascinating illustrations are fun to study as they include a diverse mix of media, such as graphite-pencil sketches, origami, maps, library cards, and photocopied pages from old books. In one picture, a bookworm—the star of their story—is carried home in a date-due pocket labeled 592.64, the Dewey decimal number for segmented worms. Violet’s voice is shown in purple, and Victor’s in orange, while the tale Violet writes down appears handwritten in pencil on lined lavender- or salmon-colored paper, depending on who is narrating. The great blend of text and illustrations combine for an enjoyable story about writing a story. Share this and Marie-Louise Gay’s Any Questions? (2014) with children interested in writing.”
– Booklist: January 23, 2015
“Twins collaborate in writing an original story about a “book-eating monster.”When bossy Violet Small decides to” write the best-ever book in the whole entire world,” she cajoles her twin brother, Victor, into helping. Far more interested in his pet worms, Victor suggests their hero should be a strong, brave worm, which Violet promptly changes to a strong, brave girl named Violet. Overhearing the school librarian complain that pages are missing from a book, Victor creates a gripping plot starring their heroine, who “creeps by comic books,” “slips through stories,” “eyeballs encyclopedias,” “peers in pages” and “flies through fairy tales” in her quest to save the library from a terrible book-eating monster. The twins’ editorializing is tracked from page to page, with Violet speaking in purple type and Victor in orange, while their versions of the story appear in childlike print in lavender and orange notebook-paper text boxes. Murguia comically presents the twins in graphite pencil sketches and, in “homage to the printed page,” combines Photoshopped multimedia images from books, maps, library cards and origami sculptures to create fantastical backgrounds for their fictional hunt for the not-so-terrible book-eating monster. Clever fare for aspiring bookworms (especially siblings).”
– Kirkus
“Violet Small is determined to write the most amazing book ever. She requests the help of her twin, and though Victor would rather mess around with his pet worms, her fervor soon pulls him into the project. As the siblings collaborate on The Best-Ever Bookworm Book (Little, Brown, 2014; K-Gr 4), ideas are shared, a plot percolates, and an enchanting tale evolves. Alice Kuipers hands the narrative reins over to her protagonists, who convey their first-person accounts in color-coded text—violet for Violet of course, and peach for Victor (the children wear corresponding T-shirts). The unfolding tale is presented on loose-leaf backgrounds of violet or peach, cleverly indicating which young author contributed each segment. The book makes a beguiling read-aloud, but youngsters will also want to take a close look at Bethanie Deeney Murguia’s inventive artwork. Sketched in graphite pencil, the winsome round-faced siblings take center stage in the realistic scenes; whimsical collages assembled from embossed book covers, antique prints and maps, and well-worn library pockets and check-out cards depict fantastical in-story moments. This charming exploration of the creative process will inspire young writers.”
– School Library Journal
“YA author Alice Kuipers makes her picture-book debut with this charming story of twins who set out to write the best book ever. And what better plot for these aspiring authors than to have their heroine save the place where all great books reside—the library—from a vicious book-eating monster? Artist Bethanie Deeney Murguia (Zoe Gets Ready) uses photoshop to combine her illustrations and real-world elements such as pages from books and library cards. The resulting pages are sure to captivate both parents and their budding bookworms.”
– Bookish.com
