A cozy episode with a little instruction and a lot of excitement.
A child learns that nurturing an egg takes a lot of care and patience.
Hiding out in a henhouse, young Lena gets an excellent view (as do readers) of an egg being laid, and when the hen wanders off, Lena carries it into the house. A few moments later, the egg is on the floor in pieces! Lena’s mom briskly explains that not all eggs hatch anyway, and aside from leaving them to the hen, the best way to care for them is with an incubator. Lena’s family pitches in to build one…and then comes the long, 21-day wait. Tharlet mostly leaves Lena and the rest of the pale-skinned human family out of the lively, close-up illustrations, focusing instead on the humorously knowing-looking hens and on the egg in the incubator, drawn by Lena on a day-by-day calendar decorated with a face and being properly turned. At the appointed time (“This is it!!”), a small crack gets longer and longer, until the shell at last falls away to reveal a cute, fuzzy, larger-than-life chick: “so soft, so sweet—what a wonder!” Being more about that wonder than embryonic development or chicken husbandry, the episode ends with Lena carrying the chick outside to join fellow hatchlings clustered around a welcoming hen, but a URL points to directions for constructing a simple incubator.
A cozy episode with a little instruction and a lot of excitement. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-988-8341-74-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: minedition
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
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