Exquisite.
A day that “begins in peaceful harmony” erupts into a summer storm that is likened to a symphony.
Fine-lined illustrations in colored pencils capture a morning in nature. It’s a soothing, onomatopoeic adventure, a “melody” that runs through the day: Birds chirp; crickets go “Cree-cree!”; wasps buzz; frogs croak; and snakes hiss. Suddenly, there is a “Whoosh!” of wind; thunder crashes, and lightning strikes. A hard rain falls. With simple sentences, Yerkes transforms the storm into a musical performance. The gathering winds are drums rolling; the thunder is cymbals crashing; and the driving rain is the “maracas mark[ing] the rhythm.” The delicate linework is especially captivating: Graceful apricot lines swirl to become a paper wasps’ nest; elegant circles in sky blue make room, within the page’s negative space, for a frog’s lily pad; a fox, whose copper-colored fur pops off the page, wanders through delicate, feathery grasses; and spreads with vertical lines dominating (tree branches reaching for the sky and tall grasses) begin to lean right as the winds pick up. Readers are then treated to a beguiling full-bleed, wordless spread of the driving rain—a series of parallel diagonal lines, creating gradients in color (shades of blues and lavenders) and space. Spreads are expertly composed with a brilliant use of white space that lets the story breathe. When the rain subsides, a vividly colored yellow bird shakes water off its feathers on this “perfect summer day.”
Exquisite. (Picture book. 3-9)Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5577-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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