Bursting with verdure and pollinators, a gentle love letter to late bloomers emphasizing the beauty of biodiversity.
A seedling flourishes in her own time, with some loving support along the way.
Teckentrup’s newest picture book details the tranquil story of a misfit plant finding her path to the sunlight. Straightforward, lilting text describes a little plant’s growth from delicate seedling to “the happiest summer plant there could be” after winding her way through the “tall and straight” spring and summer undergrowth of a northern temperate meadow, helped along by a loving community of insects and field mice. Under the patient care and encouragement of Ant and Ladybird, the shoot is encouraged, twining in and out amid the other plants, while allowed to grow in her own time, and her own way, until she is “full of love and life.” The author’s richly textured, luminous illustrations draw on seasonal color palettes and varying compositions to carry readers through the life cycle of the unspeaking protagonist. Lightly stylized to suggest cut-paper collage, the semirealistic depictions of butterflies, bees, and songbirds are recognizable while remaining poetic. A sweet ode to taking one’s time to find the right place to blossom, the story comes to its zenith with a warm, vertical double-page spread showing the no-longer-little plant in full bloom, fluttering with life and glowing under a hazy, late-summer sun.
Bursting with verdure and pollinators, a gentle love letter to late bloomers emphasizing the beauty of biodiversity. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-3-7913-7429-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Prestel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Enthusiastic and direct, this paean has a lovely ring to it.
Former National Youth Poet Laureate Gorman invites girls to raise their voices and make a difference.
“Today, we finally have a say,” proclaims the first-person plural narration as three girls (one presents Black, another is brown-skinned, and the third is light-skinned) pass one another marshmallows on a stick around a campfire. In Wise’s textured, almost three-dimensional illustrations, the trio traverse fantastical, often abstract landscapes, playing, demonstrating, eating, and even flying, while confident rhymes sing their praises and celebrate collective female victories. The phrase “LIBERATION. FREEDOM. RESPECT” appears on a protest sign that bookends their journey. Simple and accessible, the rhythmic visual storytelling presents an optimistic vision of young people working toward a better world. Sometimes family members or other diverse comrades surround the girls, emphasizing that power comes from community. Gorman is careful to specify that “some of us go by she / And some of us go by they.” She affirms, too, that each person is “a different shape and size,” though the art doesn’t show much variation in body type. Characters also vary in ability. Real-life figures emerge as the girls dream of past luminaries such as author Octavia Butler and activist Marsha P. Johnson, along with present-day role models including poet and journalist Plestia Alaqad and athlete Sha’carri Richardson; silhouettes stand in for heroines as yet unknown. Imagining that “we are where change is going” is hopeful indeed.
Enthusiastic and direct, this paean has a lovely ring to it. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593624180
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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