Yawn. Skip the text and stick with the illustrations—the result is more entertaining.
A slim, didactic text is somewhat redeemed by lively, inventive illustrations.
Stella and Sidney are twins and playmates whose momentary tussle over a bouncy ball leads to a surprising dead-on blow to the full moon in the sky and the children’s search for a replacement for the moon. Each spread is filled with Yarlett’s intriguing digital art, with small details, hints of collage, some hand-lettering throughout and plenty of kinetic perspectives. A double gatefold (Sidney and Stella’s front door) opens to a crowded street scene where the suddenly absent moon is big news, with missing posters, vendors with moon balloons and bewildered astronauts among the multitudes. Weaknesses in the textual narrative seem like the result of trying to do too many things. The hand-lettered caption “[f]eeding the quacks*” in the opening double-page illustration of the pair throwing bread into a pond is accompanied by the explanatory “*ducks” just below—but as the protagonists turn out to be older than toddlers and the silliness isn’t repeated, the humor seems flat. Readers are quizzed rhetorically about “one thing that Stella and Sidney did not do together.” “I wonder what that could be?” leads to telling, barely showing, that the twins “did not SHARE.”
Yawn. Skip the text and stick with the illustrations—the result is more entertaining. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6623-1
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
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)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.
A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.
Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593702901
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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