While lively in both text and illustration, this book’s unfortunate and unexamined acceptance of animal circus acts makes it...
A young white girl who’s unable to go to the circus finds that the circus comes to her.
This story arrives just as the use of wild animals for circus entertainment has come under such scrutiny it’s closed the Greatest Show on Earth. It’s a pity, then, that this lively story with its fresh watercolor illustrations demonstrating expert use of color washes uses circus lions, camels, elephants, monkeys, seals, and a unicycle-riding bear to inhabit the plot’s central action. Emma, the young narrator, wishes to go see the circus, but her white father tells her there is too much farm work to do. The next day, though, Emma is visited by a circus bear riding a unicycle, and the two play in the barn until suppertime. The bear returns the next day with two circus seals playing horns, and they all play together in the barn. Emma’s family (all white), busy with chores (Emma seems to have none), doesn’t notice as each day more and more of the circus shows up to play in the barn. Discovered at last by the family, Emma’s circus gives a performance in the barn especially for them. Although the conversational text is peppered with the girl’s protestations that she’s not lying, allowing ample opportunity for the illustrations to turn this into an extended fantasy, they play it straight.
While lively in both text and illustration, this book’s unfortunate and unexamined acceptance of animal circus acts makes it obsolete. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-39907-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
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
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