A gentle tale of flying high that falls a bit flat.
A young witch prepares for her first flying test.
Light-skinned Little Witch has curly orange hair and a pointy black hat. She practices diligently for the upcoming flying test but keeps leaving her broom in odd places, like the forest where Ramshackle Rat lives. By the time she finds it, it’s been gnawed on and its bristles are broken. As for her flying ability, she “dipped and doodled, / Rose and sunk, / Flew in a circle, / And landed BUMP!” On the big day, she arrives at the testing center looking a little worse for wear and promptly fails her first attempt; her fellow witches snicker. That night, however, she dips and doodles her way through a thunderstorm to help Ramshackle Rat, whose house has been struck by lightning. Surprisingly, with Ramshackle Rat on the back of her broom, she “flew like an arrow, / High and aloft / And when she came down, / Her landing was soft.” With the support of her new friend, she passes the test the next day with “flying colors” despite receiving continued criticism from the other young witches. Though Maruno’s bland text and Ritchie’s heavily lined, sketchy illustrations are mildly entertaining, and Little Witch is an endearing protagonist, much of the humor—a test center reminiscent of the DMV, for instance—will resonate only with readers familiar with real-world driver’s tests.
A gentle tale of flying high that falls a bit flat. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9781772783209
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Pajama Press
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
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
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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