There are better rainy-day romps to be had.
An onomatopoeic celebration of rain, translated from Dutch.
A light-skinned youngster and a canine pal peer out the window at the rain. They rush to don universal rain gear (yellow slicker and red boots—even for the dog) and run outside. The duo sees many creatures large and small on their adventure. Lindsten peppers the landscape with smiling trees, tiny snoozing birds, and lines of rain splashing down. Alas, while there are playful word strings that are immensely fun to recite—“splish, splash, splish, splash” or “squish, squash, squish, squash”—there are more than a few scansion stumbles in the rhyming text. Some stanzas get mired in too much detail: “Pitter, patter, pitter, patter, / swallows flying low, / excitingly swooping for flies, / while rabbits shelter in the burrow.” Others are just clunky: “Flip, flap, flip flap, / big bird trying to catch a worm. / Dog jumps, bird drops worm / with a squirm.” The narrative’s focus zooms in on ladybugs, ants, caterpillars, and more and how the rain affects them, which is an appreciated angle. However, the text mentions “happy slugs,” but the corresponding illustrations show snails. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11.4-by-16.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 43.6% of actual size.)
There are better rainy-day romps to be had. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-60537-590-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clavis
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender...
A polar-bear parent speaks poetically of love for a child.
A genderless adult and cub travel through the landscapes of an arctic year. Each of the softly rendered double-page paintings has a very different feel and color palette as the pair go through the seasons, walking through wintry ice and snow and green summer meadows, cavorting in the blue ocean, watching whales, and playing beside musk oxen. The rhymes of the four-line stanzas are not forced, as is the case too often in picture books of this type: “When cold, winter winds / blow the leaves far and wide, / You’ll cross the great icebergs / with me by your side.” On a dark, snowy night, the loving parent says: “But for now, cuddle close / while the stars softly shine. // I’ll always be yours, / and you’ll always be mine.” As the last illustration shows the pair curled up for sleep, young listeners will be lulled to sweet dreams by the calm tenor of the pictures and the words. While far from original, this timeless theme is always in demand, and the combination of delightful illustrations and poetry that scans well make this a good choice for early-childhood classrooms, public libraries, and one-on-one home read-alouds.
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender restrictions. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68010-070-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Like its subject: full of bustling life yet peaceful.
Life buzzes in a community garden.
Surrounded by apartment buildings, this city garden gets plenty of human attention, but the book’s stars are the plants and insects. The opening spread shows a black child in a striped shirt sitting in a top-story window; the nearby trees and garden below reveal the beginnings of greenery that signal springtime. From that high-up view, the garden looks quiet—but it’s not. “Sleepy slugs / and garden snails / leave behind their silver trails. / Frantic teams of busy ants / scramble up the stems of plants”; and “In the earth / a single seed / sits beside a millipede. / Worms and termites / dig and toil / moving through the garden soil.” Sicuro zooms in too, showing a robin taller than a half-page; later, close-ups foreground flowers, leaves, and bugs while people (children and adults, a multiracial group) are crucial but secondary, sometimes visible only as feet. Watercolor illustrations with ink and charcoal highlights create a soft, warm, horticulturally damp environment. Scale and perspective are more stylized than literal. McCanna’s superb scansion never misses, incorporating lists of insects and plants (“Lacewings, gnats, / mosquitos, spiders, / dragonflies, and water striders / live among the cattail reeds, / lily pads, and waterweeds”) with description (“Sunlight warms the morning air. / Dewdrops shimmer / here and there”). Readers see more than gardeners do, such as rabbits stealing carrots and lettuce from garden boxes.
Like its subject: full of bustling life yet peaceful. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1797-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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