Repeated perusals will have readers proclaiming it’s grrrrr-eat.
An artistic envisioning of a list poem, of sorts, about place.
With the exception of two double-page spreads reading “CLOUD FOREST” and “ALPINE LAKE,” Eggers’ text consists of single words on successive spreads, each one naming a geographic feature. Chang’s lush illustrations place a white, bipedal tiger in each setting, a yellow chair lashed to its back as it travels left to right with the page turns. There’s a dreamlike quality to the scenes as the intrepid tiger traverses, among other places, a gorge, a fjord, an atoll, an estuary, and a lagoon. At the center of the book, a dramatic double-gatefold spread presents (what else?) a “VISTA.” But where is the tiger going? And what is the chair’s purpose? Readers’ interest will be sustained by these looming questions and by deft shifts of visual perspective offered in the illustrations. The reward is an instance of clever wordplay in a concluding spread that shows the tiger arriving at a “TAIGA” (which, along with the other geographic terms, is defined in a backmatter glossary). Amid this “swampy forest...found in the northern parts of the globe,” a tiger family sits around a table set for a meal, with an empty place awaiting the tiger who’s traveled so far.
Repeated perusals will have readers proclaiming it’s grrrrr-eat. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6282-9
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on.
Sharpson offers so-fish-ticated readers a heads up about the true terror of the seas.
The title says it all. Our unseen narrator is just fine with other animals: mammals. Reptiles. Even birds. But fish? Don’t trust them! First off, the rules always seem to change with fish. Some live in fresh water; some reside in salt water. Some have gills, while others have lungs. You can never see what they’re up to, since they hang out underwater, and they’re always eating those poor, innocent crabs. Soon, the narrator introduces readers to Jeff, a vacant-eyed yellow fish—but don’t be fooled! Jeff’s “the craftiest fish of all.” All fish are, apparently, hellbent on world domination, the narrator warns. “DON’T TRUST FISH!” Finally, at the tail end, we get a sly glimpse of our unreliable narrator. Readers needn’t be ichthyologists to appreciate Sharpson’s meticulous comic timing. (“Ships always sink at sea. They never sink on land. Isn’t that strange?”) His delightful text, filled to the brim with jokes that read aloud brilliantly, pairs perfectly with Santat’s art, which shifts between extreme realism and goofy hilarity. He also fills the book with his own clever gags (such as an image of Gilligan’s Island’s S.S. Minnow going down and a bottle of sauce labeled “Surly Chik’n Srir’racha’r”).
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780593616673
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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