Utterly fetching.
Eighteen children’s book illustrators portray favorite dog breeds, from Labs to mutts, showing their stuff.
In their closing statements, the artists pose with favorite pooches, sometimes in childhood snapshots. Elliott’s accompanying comments, which range from two words for the Old English sheepdog (“Hair! / Everywhere!”) to affectionate rhymed or free verse sentiments, add further buoyant notes. Still, the illustrations steal the show—beginning with Ebony Glenn’s gallery of Labradors and their owners (all exhibiting a range of hues) and continuing to Charles Santoso’s pile of rumpled, sleepy bulldog pups (“Head like a melon. / Face of a felon”), Matthew Cordell’s Scottish terrier marching proudly at the head of a line of full-dress bagpipers, and other purebreds large and small. Capping it all is Oge Mora’s equally proud, paper-collage mutt: “A little this. / A little that. / A little everything but cat.” Notes in smaller type accompanying the entries point out each breed’s distinctive history and characteristics as well as their less savory tendencies to shed, drool, pass gas, or snore. For dogless readers eager for companionship and undeterred by the latter, a reference to shelters at the end offers a suggestion about where to begin a search.
Utterly fetching. (Informational picture book/poetry. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780063321922
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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