Sure to cause a BUZZ in classes, provided the teacher can get through reading it aloud.
Cleary expands his language arts books with this look at onomatopoeia.
Mrs. Garcia’s class is ready and eager for the day: butterfly nets, cameras, notebooks, magnifying glasses, and headwear that includes both deerstalker caps and pith helmets. “One day every year, the students go out on a hunt— / a favorite exercise of Mrs. Garcia— / to search the grounds and school / for something interesting and cool: / it’s what is known as onomatopoeia.” This abccb pattern makes for a tough read-aloud, as the meter and rhythm are off. But Cleary certainly gets points for enthusiasm and establishes himself as a credible contender for the record for most onomatopoeic words in one picture book. Set off in all-caps and a colored display type, each “SNAP,” “CLANG,” “FLUTTER,” and “WHIRR” stands out. The kids, a highly diverse group (two different brown-skinned girls depicted wear the hijab), go through and around the school visiting all the different classrooms and areas and collecting sounds—the gym, the science lab, the farm next door, the music room, even the bathroom (“FLUSH,” “TINKLE!”). But the exuberant book ends on a rather abrupt, even dampening note when the principal, certain the students who are sharing their words so loudly and enthusiastically are misbehaving, gives them one final one for their collection: “SHOOSH!” Pino’s pencil and Photoshop illustration are bright, detailed, and busy. Readers will find lots to pore over.
Sure to cause a BUZZ in classes, provided the teacher can get through reading it aloud. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4677-8799-4
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Millbrook/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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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