Betsy R. Rosenthal’s An Ambush of Tigers, illustrated by Jago (2015), is a much better—and more memorable—choice than this...
Danylyshyn and Lomp use rhyming verse, wordplay, and the mnemonic device of associating a word with a silly, memorable picture to introduce and help children remember the names of groups of animals.
“A group of rhinos is called a CRASH, / which happens sometimes in a flash. / Honking their horns, always hurrying to arrive, / with such poor eyesight they really shouldn’t drive.” A four-way intersection on the African savanna finds 10 dismayed or angry rhinos stranded, all involved in some sort of traffic altercation and most wearing glasses. The run of salmon all sport numbered race bibs on their bellies, the band of gorillas plays to an adoring crowd, and the committee of vultures surrounds a boardroom table, wearing ties and trying to decide between dinner and snacks. Not all of Lomp’s digital illustrations are as memorable as these, though. The pride of lions is pictured in a beauty salon, the gaze of raccoons shows a group of raccoons robbing the pies from a windowsill, their eyes blank and staring, and the zeal of zebras are depicted as spies. The verse is also weak in both rhythm and rhyme, many times not scanning well when read aloud.
Betsy R. Rosenthal’s An Ambush of Tigers, illustrated by Jago (2015), is a much better—and more memorable—choice than this effort. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3150-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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