Simple rhymes and warm images will invite young children to nod off quickly.
A series of loving images, mostly juxtapositions of animals and their surroundings, add up to a pleasing bedtime book.
Starting off a little awkwardly with “If you are the egg, I am the hen,” the text soon pivots to what becomes a pattern, with one statement per double-page spread: “If you are the bear, I am the den,” and then lines like “If you are the squirrel, I am the tree,” and “If you are the traveler, I am the sea.” The flat, naïve illustrations of the animals are rendered in a muted but attractive palette of pinks, reds, greens, and browns and are usually offset by a secondary object in a bluish gray. Small chicks inhabit each picture, supplying continuity. Vaguely reminiscent of The Runaway Bunny in its quiet rhythms, the text continues: “If you are the writer, I am the nook. / If you are the reader, I am the book.” These lines are illustrated with a skunk scrivening in a little gray space under a flight of stairs and an elephant cozily reading a gray book while sitting in a patterned green easy chair with its pink toes resting on a matching ottoman. The title is highlighted in the last two spreads, as a red fox sleeps amid the clouds and then a gray, blue, and white galaxy of stars unfolds, as the text reads: “And, if you are the dreamer… / I am the stars / holding your dreams, / whatever they are.”
Simple rhymes and warm images will invite young children to nod off quickly. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-951836-27-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cameron + Company
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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