A furry hero ventures outdoors in this engaging and colorful tale.
A curious mole continues to explore his neighborhood in this illustrated children’s book.
In this series, Mole and his sister Molie usually wander around their town meeting community helpers. But the siblings and their friends have set their sights on the area’s wilder residents in this volume. In the first story, Mole and Molie are playing in their backyard when they discover a clump of butterfly eggs in their mother’s garden. As one of the eggs hatches into a caterpillar, they tend to their new friend, feeding it and keeping a close eye. One day, the caterpillar vanishes, replaced by a thorny chrysalis. Mole, Molie, and their friends are worried, but not for long, because soon a beautiful butterfly emerges from the chrysalis. The siblings are delighted by the turn of events. In the second tale, the brother and sister investigate tadpoles after a visit to a local pond. They watch some tadpoles turn into frogs, learning about their life cycle and the amphibians’ natural predators along the way. In the end, Mole is so enamored by this trajectory that he creates a special board to chart frog development for his little sister. It seems as though Sarna (Mole Calls the Police, 2017, etc.) still has plenty of stories to tell about Mole and his family and cohorts. This volume takes a nice turn from observing people to finding out about animals and the outdoors—young readers who are just starting to understand the life cycle of butterflies, tadpoles, and the like should want to know more. The follow-up questions asked at the end are helpful for fostering discussion and conducting further research (and inspiring fledgling marine biologists). But another round of editing would have benefited the book: there are some punctuation and grammatical errors (including missing commas and strange ellipses). Still, the vivid illustrations are sure to inspire a trip to see Mother Nature’s bounty, and what could be better than children wanting to read about their world?
A furry hero ventures outdoors in this engaging and colorful tale.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4828-8603-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: PartridgeIndia
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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