A valuable addition to the social-emotional–learning bookshelf.
A girl learns to confront her grief, loneliness, and frustration with a trip to the beach.
In this fourth installment of her picture-book series on navigating emotions, Chandra Ghosh Ippen brings readers lonely child Ellie. The girl lives with Miss K., but what she wants is to see her mother again. Unfortunately, her mom doesn’t write or call, leaving Ellie confused about how her parent feels and whether she cares about her. Ellie tends to act out despite Miss K.’s best efforts. One day, Miss K. announces she wishes to “go to the beach and yell into the waves” but that she needs Ellie to help her. They venture out and release their frustrations into the water before meeting up with Ellie’s Uncle Finn to talk about her mom. While short, this story manages to pack healthy coping techniques, discussions of grief, and an acknowledgment of how complicated emotions can be in a kid-friendly package. Finn uses an easy-to-understand metaphor involving waves to explain what Ellie’s mom is going through in such a way that it can be applied to numerous situations that readers can relate to—though Erich Ippen Jr.’s illustrations hint that she may be struggling with a form of mental illness. Throughout the tale, the images are simple watercolor pictures that effectively use a palette that starts out dark, then switches to brighter colors as Ellie’s mood improves. All of the characters are depicted with brown skin.
A valuable addition to the social-emotional–learning bookshelf. (Picture book for ages 3-5.)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1950168101
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Piplo Productions
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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