Horn Book (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2019)

Presto and Zesto find themselves in Limboland just in time for the wedding of the sugar beets. But what can they bring for a gift? The droll (but overextended and arbitrary) text includes lots of wordplay. The watercolor illustrations are united in their tone, style, and sense of fun. A note by Yorinks explains how the story came to be, how it was lost, and how it came back together after Sendak's death.

Kirkus Reviews

Based on Sendak's series of 10 illustrations of Czech nonsense rhymes, an equally nonsensical story.According to Yorinks' afterword, he and Sendak cooked it up on a lark, "riffing on a story that might turn these disparate pictures into a cohesive picture book." "Cohesive" is a stretch. The title characters find themselves one day in Limboland, where a "maniac shepherd boy" apprises them of the sugar beets' imminent nuptials. Told by a goat that if no one brings a present they will "all be stuck in Limboland forever," and learning that there is only one possible present—the monster Bumbo's bagpipes—they determine to secure it. Their peregrinations take them past myriad peculiar scenes: a wood chopper taking an axe to a loaf of bread, a bear sewing his wedding outfit, a man cooking a woman in a cauldron, and "an old woman from the old country…using mumbo-jumbo and heebie-jeebie," among others. They successfully steal the bagpipes, attend the wedding, eat cake, and go home. The framed, full-page illustrations, each set opposite a block of text, are trademark Sendak, populated by doughy, white humans and expressive animals in an Old World setting. Each taken by itself presents a patently absurd scenario that invites readers unfamiliar with the original rhymes to speculate on its circumstances. However, the narrative imposed by Yorinks and Sendak both closes off that avenue of imagination and fails to present anything resembling a satisfying story. Yorinks writes of the initial "brainstorming session" that "all I specifically remember…is…both of us laughing like crazy." Reading more like a private joke (and a rather mean-spirited one at that) than a story, this posthumous effort may please scholars but is likely to disappoint readers hoping for a new Sendak on par with his earlier works. (Picture book. 5-adult)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In 1990, Maurice Sendak created 10 images for the performance of an orchestral suite of Czech nursery rhymes. Several years later, his friend and collaborator Yorinks (Company-s Coming) proposed that they write a story to go with them. They knew that in order to knit the unrelated images together, they-d have to resort to extravagant narrative invention. They cast Presto and Zesto, their nicknames for each other, as the story-s heroes and used Sendak-s panels to represent the scenes Presto and Zesto encounter when they arrive, inadvertently, in Limboland: -They didn-t mean to go there, who would go there, but they had a lot on their minds.- Despite the artifice, the story hangs together remarkably well-or at least stays true to its own bonkers logic. A wild-eyed shepherd boy tells them about the wedding of the sugar beets, and the friends set off to find the village-s only suitable wedding present-a set of bagpipes possessed by the monster Bumbo. Sendak-s bold and hilarious artwork features apoplectic villagers, disgruntled barnyard animals, fire, sharp implements, and a proliferation of goats (-Everybody has goats in Limboland-). Yet it-s not all shenanigans. Deep Sendakian emotions are at work: Bumbo is a fleshy, terrifying behemoth; the sugar beet bride wears a delicate white veil and a Mona Lisa smile. Narrating in unmistakable Brooklynese sprinkled with Yiddish (-He still owes us five bubkes-), the storytelling voice evokes a particular-even poignant-time and place. The images hold some of the irrational, dreamlike childhood fears that Sendak returned to throughout his life as an artist (a bear with scissors, a big man with an axe), but Yorinks-s broad humor makes the menace as easy to push aside as a theater curtain. It-s a joy to have another glimpse at Sendak-s magic. Ages 5-up. (Sept.)

School Library Journal (Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)

PreS-Gr 2 Humor and drama permeate this picaresque tale presented in loosely related episodes. An afterword by Yorinks describes the story's genesis (and exodus). Between 1925 and 1927, Czech composer LeoÅ¡ Janá ek composed Ríkadla , a choral piece inspired by both the charm of indigent nursery rhymes and their interpretation by compatriot, illustrator Josef Lada. In 1990, the London Symphony Orchestra invited Sendak to create projections for Janá ek's music. Later, Yorinks and Sendak, who called each other Presto and Zesto, respectively, arranged the images and extemporized a connecting narrative featuring themselves searching for dessert and entering a strange realm. To escape, they must wrangle a presentbagpipesfrom a devilish monster for the nuptials of two sugar beets, a lovely concluding scene with echoes of Caldecott. The narration combines nursery talk ("With a diddly-dee and a hippity-ho") with kibitzing and kvetching: "Have you noticedthat you just can't get good cake anymore?" The manuscript for this flight of fancy was forgotten until recently. Ridiculous situations, silly expressions, and discrepancy between text and image add wit: "Presto and Zesto tippy-toed away and soon came upon a family thoroughly enjoying the fresh air." The page turn portrays an intimidating father chopping bread with an ax, a mother avoiding eye contact, and a boy pulling on a goat while eyeing another upside-down in the pond. The compositions are informed by Lada, but the style is unmistakable. VERDICT Fresh Sendak art, a preposterous climax in which Presto's torn pants reveal his buttocks, and cakewhat's not to like? Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Library