For fairy-tale lovers, this appealing story adds a dash of magic to the night sky.
A Master-in-Training accidentally creates his greatest invention in this picture book that offers an original folktale.
Sam is an assistant to the Master, helping the wizened older man create Earth from a castle in the clouds. But the Master has a problem; during the day, he watches the people of Earth, but the darkness of night makes him miss looking at them. Sam promises to think of something, but the route is circuitous. Sam is the inventor of the Mini Moon, which uses leftover Sun Bits; his wife, Clem, is the creator of the rainbow and designs a sky tapestry for sunrise and sunset. When Sam fashions the Mega Moon to solve the Master’s night vision problem, he’s devastated to realize he’s ripped holes in Clem’s sky weavings. But then the Master shows Sam that the holes have created the stars, calling them “your best invention yet.” This charming tale is light on logic and high on whimsy, and the fairy-tale flavor makes it feel like a much older, familiar story. Davis uses accessible language for independent readers and a comforting tone to encourage nighttime lap reading with an adult. The text switches between present and past tense, which may irk some readers. Xi’s illustrations, featuring an all-White, round-faced cast, are full of fancy, and the depictions of acts of creation—Clem’s rainbow weaving and Sam’s Sun Dust sprinkling—are particularly well done.
For fairy-tale lovers, this appealing story adds a dash of magic to the night sky.Pub Date: May 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-09-836723-7
Page Count: 30
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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