In bubbly verse and playful imagery reminiscent of Mary Ann Hoberman’s classic A House Is a House For Me (1978), Scanlon expands the idea of a “pocket” to include bowls, balloons, and bathtubs, hats, horseshoes, homes, and more: “A phone is a pocket / for a ring, / a bell is a pocket / for a ding. / A pocket for a duckling is a shell, / and a pocket for a farmer is a dell— / hi ho.” Glasser sends a diverse quartet of families with young children through a day of shared and individual encounters with all of these pockets, depicting figures and settings in various combinations with typically fine, sketchy, exuberant pen work. Tucked in with the closing thought that hearts are pockets full of love, the children at last snuggle into their beds—leaving young readers and listeners seeing their own worlds in a new way, and primed for Ruth Krauss’s antediluvian, but still mind-expanding A Hole Is to Dig (1952). (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-029526-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lackluster collection of verse enlivened by a few bright spots.
Poems on various topics by the actor/screenwriter and his kids.
In collaboration with his now-grown children—particularly daughter Erin, who adds gently humorous vignettes and spot art to each entry—Bob Odenkirk, best known for his roles in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, dishes up a poetic hodgepodge that is notably loose jointed in the meter and rhyme departments. The story also too often veers from child-friendly subjects (bedtime-delaying tactics, sympathy for a dog with the zoomies) to writerly whines (“The be-all and end-all of perfection in scribbling, / no matter and no mind to any critical quibbling”). Some of the less-than-compelling lines describe how a “plane ride is an irony / with a strange and wondrous duplicity.” A few gems are buried in the bunch, however, like the comforting words offered to a bedroom monster and a frightened invisible friend, not to mention an invitation from little Willy Whimble, who lives in a tuna can but has a heart as “big as can be. / Come inside, / stay for dinner. / I’ll roast us a pea!” They’re hard to find, though. Notwithstanding nods to Calef Brown, Shel Silverstein, and other gifted wordsmiths in the acknowledgments, the wordplay in general is as artificial as much of the writing: “I scratched, then I scrutched / and skrappled away, / scritching my itch with great / pan-a-ché…” Human figures are light-skinned throughout.
A lackluster collection of verse enlivened by a few bright spots. (Poetry. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780316438506
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Iffy art cramps this 25th-anniversary reissue of the joyful title poem from Greenfield’s first collection (1978), illustrated by the Dillons. As timeless as ever, the poem celebrates everything a child loves, from kissing Mama’s warm, soft arm to listening to a cousin from the South, “ ’cause every word he says / just kind of slides out of his mouth.” “I love a lot of things / a whole lot of things,” the narrator concludes, “And honey, / I love ME, too.” The African-American child in the pictures sports an updated hairstyle and a big, infectious grin—but even younger viewers will notice that the spray of cool water that supposedly “stings my stomach” isn’t aimed there, and that a comforter on the child’s bed changes patterns between pages. More problematic, though, is a dropped doll that suddenly acquires a horrified expression that makes it look disturbingly like a live baby, and the cutesy winged fairy that hovers over the sleeping child in the final scene. The poem deserves better. (Picture book/poetry. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-009123-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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