A sweet, unassuming tale for adult and child to share.
A simple story about art and ingenuity unfolds through sparse text and clever illustrations.
A little Caucasian boy is creating a picture of a face out of pebbles. He has red ones for the hair and black for the eyes. Green would be perfect for the teeth, but he has no green ones, so it’s time to go “pebbling”! The boy and his mother set out with a picnic basket and pebbling gear. They find road pebbles and river pebbles for skipping, round pebbles and smooth ones. They spend a long, blissful day pebbling, but they return with no green pebbles. Suddenly, inspiration strikes, and the boy takes matters into his own hands, painting some pebbles green and using them to add the finishing touch to his picture. Aside from visually carrying the story, the illustrations depict lots of love between mother and son and add a bit of fun by incorporating objects made of pebbles, such as a truck, a fish, a sun and a moon. With a very similar style and feel, companion A Button Story features a little girl (also Caucasian) who must choose a new button to replace the lost one on her coat in order to go out and play with her father.
A sweet, unassuming tale for adult and child to share. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-55451-654-4
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
A gentle outing for children who are ready for stories of everyday life rather than just objects to name.
A brief rhyming board book for toddlers.
Spurr's earlier board books (In the Garden and At the Beach, both 2012; In the Woods, 2013) featured an adventuresome little boy. Her new slice-of-life story stars an equally joyful little girl who takes pleasure in flying a new kite while not venturing far off the walkway. Oliphant's expressive and light-filled watercolors clearly depict the child's emotions—eager excitement on the way to the park, delight at the kite's flight in the wind, shock when the kite breaks free, dejection, and finally relief and amazement. The rhymes work, though uneven syllable counts in some stanzas interrupt the smooth flow of the verse. The illustrations depict the child with her mass of windblown curls, brown skin, and pronounced facial features as African-American. Her guardian (presumably her mother) is also brown-skinned. It is refreshing to see an African-American family settled comfortably in a suburban setting with single-family homes and a park where the family dog does not need to be leashed.
A gentle outing for children who are ready for stories of everyday life rather than just objects to name. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-56145-854-7
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
The joys of counting combine with pretty art and homage to Goodnight Moon.
This bedtime book offers simple rhymes, celebrates the numbers one through 10, and encourages the counting of objects.
Each double-page spread shows a different toddler-and-caregiver pair, with careful attention to different skin tones, hair types, genders, and eye shapes. The pastel palette and soft, rounded contours of people and things add to the sleepy litany of the poems, beginning with “Goodnight, one fork. / Goodnight, one spoon. / Goodnight, one bowl. / I’ll see you soon.” With each number comes a different part in a toddler’s evening routine, including dinner, putting away toys, bathtime, and a bedtime story. The white backgrounds of the pages help to emphasize the bold representations of the numbers in both written and numerical forms. Each spread gives multiple opportunities to practice counting to its particular number; for example, the page for “four” includes four bottles of shampoo and four inlaid dots on a stool—beyond the four objects mentioned in the accompanying rhyme. Each home’s décor, and the array and types of toys and accoutrements within, shows a decidedly upscale, Western milieu. This seems compatible with the patronizing author’s note to adults, which accuses “the media” of indoctrinating children with fear of math “in our country.” Regardless, this sweet treatment of numbers and counting may be good prophylaxis against math phobia.
The joys of counting combine with pretty art and homage to Goodnight Moon. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-93378-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
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