This unusual look at a beloved pet’s death may be helpful to some families.
First published in the Netherlands, this story deals with the death of a large, black dog named Scout and how the three children in Scout’s family experience and ultimately accept her death.
An older brother and sister narrate the story, patiently reassuring their little brother and answering his questions when they can. The text describes the dog’s death, as the children witness Scout’s last breath while she rests in her bed. The little brother asks poignant questions about Scout and what she might be doing in heaven, and the older siblings reassure him that their dog is now happy and cared for. Heaven is presented as a happy place in the clouds, although God is not mentioned. A hopeful ending has the children convinced they can hear Scout barking “straight from the clear blue heavens,” shown in a cheery illustration in which multiple dogs play among the clouds. The illustrations are in a primitive style using black backgrounds with simple line drawings in white chalk lines, so it’s hard to determine the children’s race or ethnicity. Two illustrations in particular demonstrate a direct view of death, one with the children carrying the dog in a blanket to bury her and another with the dog in rigor mortis with her paws sticking up in the air. The black backgrounds gradually shrink into decreasingly small black silhouettes of the dog against colored backgrounds; some of these silhouettes may strike child readers as rather scary. The book has a small trim, and the tiny, often low-contrast type can be hard to read.
This unusual look at a beloved pet’s death may be helpful to some families. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5500-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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