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She’s b-a-a-c-k. The precocious star, in her trademark red, has started school, where she’s required to wear a boring uniform. Lucky for Olivia she has a gift for accessorizing. Taking her turn to tell the class about her vacation is a proud moment: “Olivia always blossoms in front of an audience,” the text states in a case of absurd understatement. It is at this precise page turn that Olivia starts to tell her fantasy story and the artist’s palette turns from red and charcoal, to bright salmon and charcoal. The circus performers are sick and Olivia is able stand in for them all. “Luckily I knew how to do everything,” she declares with typical Olivia humility. She is everything from Olivia the Clown to Olivia the Tightrope Walker, wearing an assortment of salmon-and-charcoal outfits, her mouth set in a purposeful (never fearful) line. So adroitly does Falconer charm and entertain, that it is easy to overlook the consummate skill required to completely capture personality in spare line and economical text. Sly, ironic details and superb book and page design support the effort. Two spreads open into four: simply captioned “Olivia Queen of the Trampoline,” it alternates Olivia flying into the air, her shadow cast precisely onto the trampoline and Olivia as she disappears face down and then rear end down, leaving nice impressions of her very distinguishing features. A photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt hangs over her bed, an apt model for a determined young woman, unquestionably destined for greatness. Fans will not be disappointed by this uniquely new sequel. (Picture book. 3-7)
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NonePub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82954-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
IN THE NEWS
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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