More projection than inspiration, with nothing to make up for it and fussy lettering to boot.
Young animals aspire to admirable traits.
Two protagonists—a white bunny and a gray cat—catalog their goals in first-person rhyming verse that could equally be coming from either of them. “Tomorrow I’ll be ADVENTUROUS / I’ll play and I’ll explore // I’ll make or learn or try something / I’ve never done before!” Illustrating that verse’s first half, the bunny stands confidently in a sailboat on a red sea, while the cat—in the boat’s crow’s nest—peers through a spyglass at a treasure chest on a pink island. For the verse’s second half—“make or learn or try” something new—vignettes showcase diving, painting, going to the dentist, and eating sushi with chopsticks. Unfortunately, casting sushi and/or chopsticks as “something…never done before” excludes and exoticizes readers for whom chopsticks and/or sushi are old hat. Hische’s matte illustrations are friendly, with flat, retro-styled shapes. However, each aspirational adjective marches massively across the double-page spreads, overwhelming the other text, and several of them (“strong,” “curious,” “confident,” “brave”) are set in such fancy and enormous display type that new readers (and even some adults) will need to pause and squint before deciphering the word. The first-person voice, ostensibly a child’s, sounds like an adult’s wishful thinking: “Please teach me something new”; “I’ll try my best”; “Tomorrow I’ll be SMART / I’ll think before I act”; “I’ll…think about / how much you’ve helped me grow!”
More projection than inspiration, with nothing to make up for it and fussy lettering to boot. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-8701-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Sadly, the storytelling runs aground.
A little red sleigh has big Christmas dreams.
Although the detailed, full-color art doesn’t anthropomorphize the protagonist (which readers will likely identify as a sled and not a sleigh), a close third-person text affords the object thoughts and feelings while assigning feminine pronouns. “She longed to become Santa’s big red sleigh,” reads an early line establishing the sleigh’s motivation to leave her Christmas-shop home for the North Pole. Other toys discourage her, but she perseveres despite creeping self-doubt. A train and truck help the sleigh along, and when she wishes she were big, fast, and powerful like them, they offer encouragement and counsel patience. When a storm descends after the sleigh strikes out on her own, an unnamed girl playing in the snow brings her to a group of children who all take turns riding the sleigh down a hill. When the girl brings her home, the sleigh is crestfallen she didn’t reach the North Pole. A convoluted happily-ever-after ending shows a note from Santa that thanks the sleigh for giving children joy and invites her to the North Pole next year. “At last she understood what she was meant to do. She would build her life up spreading joy, one child at a time.” Will she leave the girl’s house to be gifted to other children? Will she stay and somehow also reach ever more children? Readers will be left wondering. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 31.8% of actual size.)
Sadly, the storytelling runs aground. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72822-355-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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