A sweet tale celebrating the joys of both personal and communal togetherness.
An interspecies lovefest starring two urban strays.
Depicting his anthropomorphic animals (except Pigeon) in ragged clothes, Hemingway pairs an anti-social stray cat who lives in an abandoned lot with a small gray bird who hatches in his lap from a fallen egg. Once Pigeon learns to fly, she begins bringing him paint, crayons, and other gifts…but then one day fails to come back. Cat leaves the lot to search for her—chalking messages on walls, sharing fish heads with other strays, and, in time, finding the city a more welcoming place than he had imagined. And, when at last he comes back, he discovers that not only has Pigeon returned, but she has brought with her a host of animal friends who have turned the entire lot into a verdant, brightly decorated public art space with a round table at the center where all can celebrate together. As if the storyline isn’t cozy enough on its own, Hemingway sets it in a city as shiny and squeaky clean as can be, festooned with hearts, rainbows, and smiley faces. Even more adorably, Pigeon speaks entirely in emoticons and rebuses. These are fairly easy to follow, but, perhaps in a concession to less versatile readers (parents, for instance), Pigeon’s longest speech—in which she explains to Cat that she was injured in a thunderstorm and what she has been up to since—comes with a translation. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A sweet tale celebrating the joys of both personal and communal togetherness. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-31125-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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