Too didactic to be much fun but certainly pretty.
Find out why mermaids have tails.
A dark-skinned boy named Theodore rows his boat around a pastel-colored world filled with anthropomorphic sea creatures. He brings a hefty selection of fish back to his skylit home so he can watch “the way their scales shimmer…in the sunlight like jewels.” Bright flecks in the illustrations provide a dreamy, enchanted quality—the book’s biggest strength. When Theodore captures a mermaid—a tiny humanoid creatures with legs, surrounded by a clear shell—a booming voice tells him that “she belongs to the ocean,” but he ignores it. Calling the mermaid Oceanne, he drops her into a suffocating, filterless fishbowl. As the mermaid sickens and her shell breaks, scenes darken and lose saturation. If an omnipotent voice hadn't already broadcast the story’s moral, Theodore and readers might now put it together themselves in a satisfying exercise of agency and meaning-making. Instead, the loud voice repeatedly insists that Oceanne “belongs to the ocean” until Theodore finally brings her back. The sea is subdued and empty, but eventually fish after fish reappears, each giving Oceanne a sparkly scale until she revives and grows a tail. “All mermaids have tails,” the narrative declares, “to remind us of something very important”: that animals belong in the wild. While it’s an important lesson, the preachy narrative talks down to readers rather than engaging them.
Too didactic to be much fun but certainly pretty. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9780711295315
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
Sure to have little ones giggling.
Jacques is a hedgehog with a big secret: “I wear real, bona fide underwear.”
Our narrator received a mysterious package one day; an illustration shows a pair of underwear tied to a balloon with a note “from the Universe” floating down into Jacques’ burrow. Hedgehogs don’t wear underwear, however. Will Jacques be shunned? Jacques worries but comes to a decision: “I have to wear them. When I do I feel special.” Determined, Jacques, who’s been invited to a party, makes a dramatic entrance, with undies in hand. Jacques’ declaration (“I WEAR UNDERWEAR”) is met with remarks of dismay, before another hedgehog opens up about similar fears and shows off a pair of cowboy boots. More hedgehogs introduce themselves with their own confessions. The story ends with Jacques unveiling a painting of the underwear in a gallery filled with hedgehogs wearing all sorts of attire. Though the book is simple in plot, characters, and setting, it wins in its balance of bathroom humor, dramatic storytelling, and celebrations of individual expression. French words are peppered throughout, adding to the fun without detracting from the story for those unfamiliar with the language. The cartoonish illustrations brim with fun; Valdez relies heavily on geometric shapes (triangle noses for the hedgehogs; huge circles for their eyes). Details such as speech bubbles and recurring turtle and snake characters contribute to the outlandish humor.
Sure to have little ones giggling. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781250814388
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A wandering effort, happy but pointless.
The perfect book for kids who love dragons and mild tacos.
Rubin’s story starts with an incantatory edge: “Hey, kid! Did you know that dragons love tacos? They love beef tacos and chicken tacos. They love really big gigantic tacos and tiny little baby tacos as well.” The playing field is set: dragons, tacos. As a pairing, they are fairly silly, and when the kicker comes in—that dragons hate spicy salsa, which ignites their inner fireworks—the silliness is sillier still. Second nature, after all, is for dragons to blow flames out their noses. So when the kid throws a taco party for the dragons, it seems a weak device that the clearly labeled “totally mild” salsa comes with spicy jalapenos in the fine print, prompting the dragons to burn down the house, resulting in a barn-raising at which more tacos are served. Harmless, but if there is a parable hidden in the dragon-taco tale, it is hidden in the unlit deep, and as a measure of lunacy, bridled or unbridled, it doesn’t make the leap into the outer reaches of imagination. Salmieri’s artwork is fitting, with a crabbed, ethereal line work reminiscent of Peter Sís, but the story does not offer it enough range.
A wandering effort, happy but pointless. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3680-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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