THINGS TO DO

Name: THINGS TO DO
Author: Elaine Magliaro
ISBN: 978-1-4521-1124-7

by Elaine Magliaro ; illustrated by Cátia Chien ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 7, 2017

When the day is just waiting be filled with fun, one of the “things to do” may well be to share this with some children.

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In rhyming text, a child imagines the furtive joys of a range of anthropomorphized concepts and objects.

“Things to do if you are DAWN / shoo away night. / Wash the eastern sky with light. / Wake the sleeping sun: / Rise and shine!” After pecking for breakfast on the lawn, a bird might stretch its wings “on the brightening sky.” Magliaro’s approach is poetic but not particularly systematic, although that makes it winningly childlike. The series of “if you are”s also includes an acorn, a honeybee, a snail, the sun, the sky, an eraser, a pair of scissors, rain, boots, an orb spider, crickets, and the moon. The poetry is graceful, with key words set in uppercase and descriptors in varying typefaces evoking the moods. Chien’s brushy-textured acrylic illustrations convey the breezy feelings that make the musings soar, employing diaphanous layers that lend a fuzzy, dreamlike feel. Effective page compositions vary perspectives to make the images sway in the breeze. The orb spider spread, with the light-skinned dreamer’s face behind a web, is aesthetically striking. Wearing a hat and pants, the child is not identified as a girl, but the patterned endpapers depicting a child in a dress imply gender. A sidekick dog adds another touch of whimsy.

When the day is just waiting be filled with fun, one of the “things to do” may well be to share this with some children. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4521-1124-7

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S HEALTH & DAILY LIVING

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LOVE FROM THE CRAYONS

by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 24, 2019

As ephemeral as a valentine.

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Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.

Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.

As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)

Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Penguin Workshop

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS

- BOOK REVIEW
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY FROM THE CRAYONS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

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HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY FROM THE CRAYONS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

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THE CRAYONS GIVE THANKS
by Drew Daywalt & illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

- SEEN & HEARD
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- SEEN & HEARD
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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)