A sensitively portrayed snapshot of an all-too-common family experience.
Fragile memories can be strengthened through family and love.
An Asian-presenting young boy with tan skin, dark hair, and a bright green backpack visits his lighter-skinned grandmother only to discover that she does not recognize him as her grandson Andy. Instead, she believes he is Willie, a boy she taught in kindergarten years back, who once gave her a homemade bird’s nest. Andy gently enters the memory with his grandmother, calling her Miss Irwin instead, and learns about the events of that day, when Miss Irwin brought her class to a plum tree in the yard outside the school to see a hummingbird sip nectar from a feeder in the tree. Grandma’s memory again falters in recalling the recipe for hummingbird nectar, but Andy is there to prompt her and sustain the story. Grandma finds her way through the foggy reminiscence, and the two spend a pleasant afternoon, making plans to construct a new feeder. Say’s muted palette features pastel hues and layered brush strokes that soften and lend a dreamlike quality to the illustrations. Andy’s and Grandma’s faces are often featureless or even blurred, making this experience—of seeing an older relative deal with memory decline—feel universal. The quiet and straightforward text, while not particularly eventful, nevertheless may spark important questions among children. An author’s note provides additional background. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A sensitively portrayed snapshot of an all-too-common family experience. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 18, 2023
ISBN: 9781338300406
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back.
With such short arms, how can Tiny T. Rex give a sad friend a hug?
Fleck goes for cute in the simple, minimally detailed illustrations, drawing the diminutive theropod with a chubby turquoise body and little nubs for limbs under a massive, squared-off head. Impelled by the sight of stegosaurian buddy Pointy looking glum, little Tiny sets out to attempt the seemingly impossible, a comforting hug. Having made the rounds seeking advice—the dino’s pea-green dad recommends math; purple, New Age aunt offers cucumber juice (“That is disgusting”); red mom tells him that it’s OK not to be able to hug (“You are tiny, but your heart is big!”), and blue and yellow older sibs suggest practice—Tiny takes up the last as the most immediately useful notion. Unfortunately, the “tree” the little reptile tries to hug turns out to be a pterodactyl’s leg. “Now I am falling,” Tiny notes in the consistently self-referential narrative. “I should not have let go.” Fortunately, Tiny lands on Pointy’s head, and the proclamation that though Rexes’ hugs may be tiny, “I will do my very best because you are my very best friend” proves just the mood-lightening ticket. “Thank you, Tiny. That was the biggest hug ever.” Young audiences always find the “clueless grown-ups” trope a knee-slapper, the overall tone never turns preachy, and Tiny’s instinctive kindness definitely puts him at (gentle) odds with the dinky dino star of Bob Shea’s Dinosaur Vs. series.
Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7033-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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