Inviting their readers to choose the answer themselves, this skillful author-illustrator pair again encourages their senses...
Who is the most amazing creature in the sea?
Following the format of their The Greatest Dinosaur Ever (2013), Guiberson and Spirin offer answers to that question from a dozen amazing sea creatures, plus a passel of helpers. Paintings on double-page spreads show each animal in its likely habitat. In text running across the bottom of the spread, each creature, from box jellyfish to wolffish, explains why it deserves the “most amazing” title. These short justifications are full of the kinds of facts children love. The leatherback sea turtle dives deepest, the shape-changing mimic octopus is a “master of disguise,” a female anglerfish sees and eats on behalf of the males it has absorbed, and so forth. After introducing the most venomous, most evasive, slimiest, most frost-resistant, and most enormous creatures, the author surprises by describing some of the smallest: the menhaden, oysters, sea urchins, coral, remora, wrasse, and krill who keep the fish and their waters clean and feed the larger jellies, cephalopods, fish, turtles, and whales. The illustrations, created with tempera, watercolor, and pencil and emphasizing shades of green and brown, evoke the mystery of the ocean depths, a concept reinforced in a concluding author’s note.
Inviting their readers to choose the answer themselves, this skillful author-illustrator pair again encourages their senses of wonder at the natural world. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9961-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
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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
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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