Imagination is a powerful tool; perhaps this will show readers how to harness its powers to tame their fears instead of...
Instead of worrying about the many monsters and ghouls that are typical Halloween haunts, a young girl, who narrates in the first person as she lies in bed, uses her imagination to put her fears to rest.
After an opening verse and an image of the girl with her blankets pulled up to her chin, Solimine’s first spread-spanning illustration shows the girl in bed in her room, the blue monochrome illustration showing all sorts of spooky things. But this little girl isn’t one to panic. Instead, she lets her curiosity take charge, the illustrations depicting each silly scenario: “Are MUMMIES fond of long bike rides / just like normal folks? / Or do their crusty bandages / get tangled in the spokes?” Do ghosts teach their pets to play dead? Does Dracula floss? Does the Boogeyman wipe his boogers on his sleeve? The final spread returns readers to the bedroom, only now the spooky things are gone, replaced by the objects that inspired them: the tentacle beneath the bed? Only a scarf. “All these questions make the ghoulish appear foolish / and the ghostly mostly meek. / Being scared is so silly now that / monsters seem so weak!” Though the text’s scansion is sometimes off, Solimine’s pencil, pen, and Photoshop illustrations are sure to tickle readers’ funny bones (and disgust them as well). The palette is heavy on orange, green, and purple; the girl has brown skin and brown braids.
Imagination is a powerful tool; perhaps this will show readers how to harness its powers to tame their fears instead of feeding them. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-54641-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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