An often fun read-aloud that could use a spoonful of science.
A group of children create gingerbread houses in Pattison’s picture book, illustrated by Joven.
When teacher Miss Sheridan announces a gingerbread-house-making contest, her young students race into action to create an entry for the class. At first, they burn the cookies, spread icing too thin, construct uneven walls, and place the roof askew. They also don’t put enough gumdrops on the structure, which eventually caves in. However, with a whole lot more icing—“We glue and we glue and we glue and we glue”—and swift chiseling, they manage to complete the house, which wins the grand prize. Joven’s playful, humorous color illustrations feature construction equipment and children with various skin tones, hairstyles, and eye colors. Pattison’s love of rhyming and repetition is on full display: “This is the roof, that we drop right on top….And it’s nibbled and pinched, and that simply must stop!” However, the book’s subtitle, “a STEM engineering story,” suggests that it will include math or science—in backmatter, at least—yet none accompanies the story; a spread titled “Lessons we’ve learned” reads like an afterthought. Despite these hiccups, Pattison’s text begs to be read aloud, and Joven’s spreads offer dynamic visuals that give readers’ eyes many places to travel on the page.
An often fun read-aloud that could use a spoonful of science.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-62-944157-3
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Mims House
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard.
A grouchy sapling on a Christmas tree farm finds that there are better things than lights and decorations for its branches.
A Grinch among the other trees on the farm is determined never to become a sappy Christmas tree—and never to leave its spot. Its determination makes it so: It grows gnarled and twisted and needle-less. As time passes, the farm is swallowed by the suburbs. The neighborhood kids dare one another to climb the scary, grumpy-looking tree, and soon, they are using its branches for their imaginative play, the tree serving as a pirate ship, a fort, a spaceship, and a dragon. But in winter, the tree stands alone and feels bereft and lonely for the first time ever, and it can’t look away from the decorated tree inside the house next to its lot. When some parents threaten to cut the “horrible” tree down, the tree thinks, “Not now that my limbs are full of happy children,” showing how far it has come. Happily for the tree, the children won’t give up so easily, and though the tree never wished to become a Christmas tree, it’s perfectly content being a “trick or tree.” Martinez’s digital illustrations play up the humorous dichotomy between the happy, aspiring Christmas trees (and their shoppers) and the grumpy tree, and the diverse humans are satisfyingly expressive.
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7335-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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