A sweet, reassuring tale of feather-flapping fun and friendship.
In Davis’ debut picture book, an upbeat young duck struggles to control her excitement in the lead-up to a singing performance.
Lulu, a pink-cheeked, pink-ribboned yellow duckling, is known for her cheerful, friendly personality…and her involuntary, high-pitched quacking whenever she grows too excited. Lulu’s young friends are helping her prepare for a vocal recital. They include Finley, a light-skinned, blond-haired girl; Maria, a bespectacled Latine girl; and Pierre, a blue-eyed French boy. Lulu loves singing, but she can never complete her song without suffering an attack of the “oopsie duckies.” By joining her on stage, can Lulu’s friends keep her calm enough to make it through her performance? Davis narrates in straightforward, nonrhyming text, allowing the cute story to speak for itself. Lulu is a loveable protagonist, her excitability immediately recognizable in her propensity for “high-feathering” (“high-fiving,” only with wings) her friends. QBN Studios’ digital illustrations capture the crayon textures of early childhood artwork; they are particularly evocative in their depictions of trees and, less tangibly, joyousness. Lulu’s colorful QUACK! QUACK! QUACK!s leap from the page. The hand-painted stage is a true work of art; the children, in contrast, seem a little generic—an impression furthered by such repetitions as the “Hi/Hola/Bonjour” illustrations being identical to those of the subsequent images accompanying “Bye/Adios/Au revoir.” Nonetheless, young readers should delight in Lulu’s quack-happy “preduckament.”
A sweet, reassuring tale of feather-flapping fun and friendship.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2023
ISBN: 9798987606001
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come.
Little Blue Truck and his pal Toad meet friends old and new on a springtime drive through the country.
This lift-the-flap, interactive entry in the popular Little Blue Truck series lacks the narrative strength and valuable life lessons of the original Little Blue Truck (2008) and its sequel, Little Blue Truck Leads the Way (2009). Both of those books, published for preschoolers rather than toddlers, featured rich storylines, dramatic, kinetic illustrations, and simple but valuable life lessons—the folly of taking oneself too seriously, the importance of friends, and the virtue of taking turns, for example. At about half the length and with half as much text as the aforementioned titles, this volume is a much quicker read. Less a story than a vernal celebration, the book depicts a bucolic drive through farmland and encounters with various animals and their young along the way. Beautifully rendered two-page tableaux teem with butterflies, blossoms, and vibrant pastel, springtime colors. Little Blue greets a sheep standing in the door of a barn: “Yoo-hoo, Sheep! / Beep-beep! / What’s new?” Folding back the durable, card-stock flap reveals the barn’s interior and an adorable set of twin lambs. Encounters with a duck and nine ducklings, a cow with a calf, a pig with 10 (!) piglets, a family of bunnies, and a chicken with a freshly hatched chick provide ample opportunity for counting and vocabulary work.
Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-544-93809-0
Page Count: 16
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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