A very loving book, a tribute really, to the teachers of the world and beyond them to all people who nurture children. “At the end of the summer, Mr. Merrick, the principal, walks down the hall to Mrs. Spitzer’s room and gives her a packet of seeds.” The end of summer? wonders the alert reader. Well yes, for this is a metaphorical garden, and as Mrs. Spitzer plants, water, weeds, and tends each seedling, she delights in their individuality: tall and thin, bushy and wide-spreading, quick to grow or slow, showy or reticent. Tusa picks up the metaphor with characteristic ingenuity and charm, depicting a gray-haired but young-looking woman, comfortably dressed, leaving a well-stocked kindergarten classroom to tend a swelling garden of flowers and vegetables, each sporting eyes, a smiling mouth, and a look of eager interest. Ultimately the season comes to a close, but the plants keep on growing, now beyond the care of Mrs. Spitzer. Pattou’s language is simple but artful, keeping mawkishness at bay, while conveying a deep appreciation of the fine art of teaching. Lucky the reader, of any age, who had a Mrs. Spitzer. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-201978-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip. The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface. Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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