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ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Name: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
Author: Barney Saltzberg
ISBN: 978-1-939547-42-2

by Barney Saltzberg ; illustrated by Barney Saltzberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2018

This sweet story will help young readers recognize their own needs—for space, time, and a good book

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When Will, a sheep, pushes his presumably older sibling, Olive, out of her chair more times than she can count, Olive decides that “Enough is enough!” and tells Will that she wants to be alone for a while.

“How do you know when enough is enough?” Will asks, now sitting comfortably on the chair. “I just know,” says Olive, and she tears a hole in the page (of the book readers are holding), escaping into a green meadow in the next page. When Will follows her—“You forgot your book!”—she suggests he look at the pictures while she’s away, assuring him that she will read to him when she gets back from her “alone time.” Olive then goes from one page to the next, (literally) enjoying her “space” and “time” alone as she floats through outer space, swims with some fish, and walks across a tight rope. When it gets “Almost too quiet,” Olive misses Will and goes back through the hole in the page, back to the chair in the living room, to read to him. Saltzberg uses simple bold type and cartoonlike images to dramatize an all-too-familiar sibling dynamic that, refreshingly, evolves to a state in which both siblings are equally considerate of the other’s wishes.

This sweet story will help young readers recognize their own needs—for space, time, and a good book . (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: May 1, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-939547-42-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Creston

Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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THE SMELL OF WET DOG
by Barney Saltzberg ; illustrated by Barney Saltzberg

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ARLO NEEDS GLASSES
by Barney Saltzberg ; illustrated by Barney Saltzberg

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A DELICIOUS STORY
by Barney Saltzberg ; illustrated by Barney Saltzberg

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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LOVE FROM THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2015

Safe to creep on by.

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Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.

In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.

Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)