Ethel may not win any cat marathons, but she’ll win hearts young and old.
When you’re set in your ways, little changes can really throw you.
Ethel the black-and-white cat is old and fat. Each day she sits on the porch and surveys her surroundings, monitoring the weather, chasing a few ants, and rolling on her favorite piece of sidewalk. “It wasn’t easy being Ethel, but she was good at it.” Then one afternoon, rolling on her sidewalk leaves her covered in blue chalk. The other cats comment on her new look, and that makes Ethel feel blue. She hides inside until she spies Fluffy, who, though usually white, is pink. Fluffy joins Ethel in her daily routines, and this time sidewalk rolling makes them both rainbow-colored. Ethel is still old and fat, but only sometimes white and black; with her young companion, she’s happy with that. Reinhardt’s tale of routine interrupted is a quiet one that highlights the power of friendship. When the other cats comment on Ethel’s new color, none says anything negative, but it makes her self-conscious. The final, wordless illustration of the whole troupe of them covered in rainbow chalk dust and a knowing smile passing between Ethel and Fluffy shows her confidence rebuilt. Watercolor-and-ink illustrations are scratchy and smeary and quite detailed (Fluffy has his eye on Ethel from afar from the start). Ethel’s corpulence is exaggerated by comically skinny and stubby legs, but her comfort with herself keeps the depiction from feeling mocking.
Ethel may not win any cat marathons, but she’ll win hearts young and old. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-30382-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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
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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