Squirrel and raccoon friends Winky, Skipper, and Tag from The Make-Something Club (1994) reunite on a cold winter day for the making of 12 preschool projects, one for each month of the year. The subtitle boasts fun with crafts, food, and gifts, but some of the activities are merely ideas for play, e.g., arranging chairs draped with a blanket to form a cave. Among the more commonly found projects are fashioning kazoos out of cardboard tubes and sprouting sweet potatoes in a jar. Most are indoor projects, though June and July's involve collecting ants and blowing bubbles, and most require a minimum of household materials. Crafty kids will enjoy the more unusual projects: aluminum-foil light-catcher punch pictures and jigsaw puzzles cut from cereal boxes. Kitchen dabblers will prefer to roll up sandwiches, stuff dates, or poke oranges to insert cloves for pomanders, all with a minimum of mess. The illustrated, kid-friendly instructions have no more than six steps, and the insets of the club members conversing and cavorting will engage preschoolers while parents ready work spaces for action. (Picture book. 3-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-670-86727-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997
A book that will make young dog-owners smile in recognition and confirm dogless readers' worst suspicions about the mayhem caused by pets, even winsome ones. Sam, who bears passing resemblance to an affable golden retriever, is praised for fetching the family newspaper, and goes on to fetch every other newspaper on the block. In the next story, only the children love Sam's swimming; he is yelled at by lifeguards and fishermen alike when he splashes through every watering hole he can find. Finally, there is woe to the entire family when Sam is bored and lonely for one long night. Boland has an essential message, captured in both both story and illustrations of this Easy-to-Read: Kids and dogs belong together, especially when it's a fun-loving canine like Sam. An appealing tale. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8037-1530-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1996
A nice but not requisite purchase.
A retelling of the classic fairy tale in board-book format and with a Mexican setting.
Though simplified for a younger audience, the text still relates the well-known tale: mean-spirited stepmother, spoiled stepsisters, overworked Cinderella, fairy godmother, glass slipper, charming prince, and, of course, happily-ever-after. What gives this book its flavor is the artwork. Within its Mexican setting, the characters are olive-skinned and dark-haired. Cultural references abound, as when a messenger comes carrying a banner announcing a “FIESTA” in beautiful papel picado. Cinderella is the picture of beauty, with her hair up in ribbons and flowers and her typically Mexican many-layered white dress. The companion volume, Snow White, set in Japan and illustrated by Misa Saburi, follows the same format. The simplified text tells the story of the beautiful princess sent to the forest by her wicked stepmother to be “done away with,” the dwarves that take her in, and, eventually, the happily-ever-after ending. Here too, what gives the book its flavor is the artwork. The characters wear traditional clothing, and the dwarves’ house has the requisite shoji screens, tatami mats and cherry blossoms in the garden. The puzzling question is, why the board-book presentation? Though the text is simplified, it’s still beyond the board-book audience, and the illustrations deserve full-size books.
A nice but not requisite purchase. (Board book/fairy tale. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7915-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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