Entertaining holiday fare that pays homage to spending time with someone special.
Porcupine is a stickler for romance.
On Valentine’s Day, well-meaning Porcupine pokes various animal pals with quills, à la mythic Cupid striking the lovelorn with arrows. Unsurprisingly, his efforts at “fanning the flames of love” arouse angry, pained yelps. A bear huffily scolds Porcupine, giving him an idea: He secretly scrawls and posts a sign announcing a meeting in the forest, at which his pals gather to voice their disgruntlement. Porcupine, perched on a tree limb and dangling paper hearts above the assemblage, observes covertly and listens in on the proceedings with delight. He notes that he’s successfully stage-managed the perfect Valentine’s Day scene: The complainers all pair off in sympathy with each other, walk away happily, then engage in enjoyable activities together. However, this wouldn’t be an entirely happy Valentine’s Day story if the protagonist didn’t find a love connection of his own—cue the sweet twist at the end. This endearing, albeit predictable, holiday tale blends simple, expressive humor with warmth and sweetness. Young readers will giggle at the gentle figurative as well as metaphoric jabs that love, according to Porcupine, may entail. Colorful line illustrations capably evoke the setting as well as characters’ lively personalities. Porcupine and companion sport eyeglasses while some characters wear apparel; a bear carries a cane. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-16-inch double-page spreads viewed at 50.4% of actual size.)
Entertaining holiday fare that pays homage to spending time with someone special. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8101-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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