A useful tool for introducing a difficult topic to young readers.
A wolf in bird’s clothing tricks an innocent canary in this rhyming picture book about trafficking.
Nicolette is a young canary in Kiev, Ukraine. Instead of spending time with her family, she strives to be cool, making TikTok videos and going on adventures, bemoaning the fact that she has to do chores. When she complains to her friends and reveals her dreams of traveling, a wolf listens. When the wolf, dressed in a mask to look like a fellow bird, offers Nicolette a trip to America in exchange for work, she jumps at the chance. But the wolf is up to no good: “The Big Bad Wolf waited patiently and pretended until they got to their destination. / Nicolette had no idea of his true expectation.” Forced into servitude, Nicolette finally escapes by fleeing to the police, who send her home to her family. Mehlman-Orozco, a criminologist, opens with a lengthy note to parents, advising them to read the tale with their children. The author suggests that adults should use familiar story examples of villains who pretend to be good to explain how victims are tricked. The uneven rhymes that follow are laid out in text blocks, making the scansion hard to follow. Rodic’s illustrations featuring subdued tones and an animal cast give readers some distance from the story’s scary parts. But the inclusion of modern tools like a ring light keeps the effective cautionary tale grounded in reality.
A useful tool for introducing a difficult topic to young readers.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-96529-1
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Break The Chain Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come.
Little Blue Truck and his pal Toad meet friends old and new on a springtime drive through the country.
This lift-the-flap, interactive entry in the popular Little Blue Truck series lacks the narrative strength and valuable life lessons of the original Little Blue Truck (2008) and its sequel, Little Blue Truck Leads the Way (2009). Both of those books, published for preschoolers rather than toddlers, featured rich storylines, dramatic, kinetic illustrations, and simple but valuable life lessons—the folly of taking oneself too seriously, the importance of friends, and the virtue of taking turns, for example. At about half the length and with half as much text as the aforementioned titles, this volume is a much quicker read. Less a story than a vernal celebration, the book depicts a bucolic drive through farmland and encounters with various animals and their young along the way. Beautifully rendered two-page tableaux teem with butterflies, blossoms, and vibrant pastel, springtime colors. Little Blue greets a sheep standing in the door of a barn: “Yoo-hoo, Sheep! / Beep-beep! / What’s new?” Folding back the durable, card-stock flap reveals the barn’s interior and an adorable set of twin lambs. Encounters with a duck and nine ducklings, a cow with a calf, a pig with 10 (!) piglets, a family of bunnies, and a chicken with a freshly hatched chick provide ample opportunity for counting and vocabulary work.
Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-544-93809-0
Page Count: 16
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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