This is one bear all kids will want to cuddle up with when it’s time for lights out.
A special friend helps a child overcome fear.
Afraid of the dark, Ettie keeps a flashlight under the covers at bedtime. But tonight brings a surprise. A cascade of sparkling light motes enter the room through the partially opened curtains. Ettie “paints” on the wall with the dazzling light, then dances with it, producing wondrous arcs around the room. Opening the curtains completely, Ettie smiles at the moon, then plays connect the dots with the glowing stars, creating a bear who enters the room in an illuminated burst. The pair play all night. By morning, the bear’s disappeared; Ettie can’t explain its presence to Mommy—though sparkles remain on the pillow. But Ettie has a different, more potent reminder of the bear’s presence: a newfound confidence when it comes to the dark. That evening, the child hurriedly eats dinner, reminds Mommy when it’s bedtime, speeds through the nightly bedtime routine, and even nudges Mommy out the door. A bear’s coming! Grown-ups, take heed. This very charming, nearly wordless fantasy reassures kids that fears of the dark can be conquered with some imagination and a smidgen of light. The gouache and colored pencil illustrations are cheerily de-light-ful, presented in lively panels of different sizes, comics-style. Ettie and Mommy are light-skinned.
This is one bear all kids will want to cuddle up with when it’s time for lights out. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9780711291010
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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