This beloved nursery rhyme gets a fresh and meaningful modernization.
Move over, Old MacDonald: The hardworking Miss MacDonald has a green thumb and plenty of plants.
This tale follows the same cadence as the familiar song but replaces the opening lines with “Miss MacDonald has a farm. / She loves things that grow.” Instead of caring for pastures full of animals, Miss MacDonald grows food, “with a water-water here” and a “drip-drop there.” Once her bounty is ready, the titular farmer harvests her crops and cooks up a feast for her friends. Caregivers and educators will find the bouncy text fun to sing, but it’s also readable if that’s preferred. Gwarjanski employs rich vocabulary words such as shuck, tubers, and thresh, many of which are defined in an appended glossary. Miss MacDonald has brown skin and wears oversized, orange-tinted sunglasses, a wide-brimmed hat, tall socks, and gardening clogs. On every page she tirelessly tends to her plants, while the accompanying illustrations feature vibrant, true-to-life depictions of seedlings, vines, and stalks. This is a delightful update that centers a woman and encourages readers to consider how the foods they love appear on the table. Those who want to follow Miss MacDonald’s worthy example should check out the recipe for a harvest vegetable bake in the backmatter.
This beloved nursery rhyme gets a fresh and meaningful modernization. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780593568163
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Nothing new here but a nonetheless congenial matriculant in publishing’s autumnal rite of back-to-school offerings.
The Crayons head back to class in this latest series entry.
Daywalt’s expository text lays out the basics as various Crayons wave goodbye to the beach, choose a first-day outfit, greet old friends, and make new ones. As in previous outings, the perennially droll illustrations and hand-lettered Crayon-speak drive the humor. The ever wrapperless Peach, opining, “What am I going to wear?” surveys three options: top hat and tails, a chef’s toque and apron, and a Santa suit. New friends Chunky Toddler Crayon (who’s missing a bite-sized bit of their blue point) and Husky Toddler Crayon speculate excitedly on their common last name: “I wonder if we’re related!” White Crayon, all but disappearing against the page’s copious white space, sits cross-legged reading a copy of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. And Yellow and Orange, notable for their previous existential argument about the color of the sun, find agreement in science class: Jupiter, clearly, is yellow AND orange. Everybody’s excited about art class—“Even if they make a mess. Actually…ESPECIALLY if they make a mess!” Here, a spread of crayoned doodles of butterflies, hearts, and stars is followed by one with fulsome scribbles. Fans of previous outings will spot cameos from Glow in the Dark and yellow-caped Esteban (the Crayon formerly known as Pea Green). (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Nothing new here but a nonetheless congenial matriculant in publishing’s autumnal rite of back-to-school offerings. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9780593621110
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
A welcome addition to autumnal storytelling—and to tales of traditional enemies overcoming their history.
Ferry and the Fans portray a popular seasonal character’s unlikely friendship.
Initially, the protagonist is shown in his solitary world: “Scarecrow stands alone and scares / the fox and deer, / the mice and crows. / It’s all he does. It’s all he knows.” His presence is effective; the animals stay outside the fenced-in fields, but the omniscient narrator laments the character’s lack of friends or places to go. Everything changes when a baby crow falls nearby. Breaking his pole so he can bend, the scarecrow picks it up, placing the creature in the bib of his overalls while singing a lullaby. Both abandon natural tendencies until the crow learns to fly—and thus departs. The aabb rhyme scheme flows reasonably well, propelling the narrative through fall, winter, and spring, when the mature crow returns with a mate to build a nest in the overalls bib that once was his home. The Fan brothers capture the emotional tenor of the seasons and the main character in their panoramic pencil, ballpoint, and digital compositions. Particularly poignant is the close-up of the scarecrow’s burlap face, his stitched mouth and leaf-rimmed head conveying such sadness after his companion goes. Some adults may wonder why the scarecrow seems to have only partial agency, but children will be tuned into the problem, gratified by the resolution.
A welcome addition to autumnal storytelling—and to tales of traditional enemies overcoming their history. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-247576-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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