A straightforward, vocabulary-rich portrait of a squirrel and his family.
A young squirrel comes of age in this children’s book that’s part story and part nature lesson.
Friend (Icy the Iceberg, 2017) introduces readers to a family of squirrels that lives near a large cabin. The one most eager to leave the nest is Squirrelly. He helps his father build a new nest for their family, and most impressively, becomes a shrewd hunter of the cabin’s many bird feeders. Despite the cabin owner’s attempts to deter the squirrels, Squirrelly perseveres, often finding enough food to feed his clan through the winter. If only the same talents were bestowed upon his brother Sluggo, who ignores his father’s lessons and advice until it’s too late. Eventually, Squirrelly moves out of the comfort of his parents’ nest into his own tree, and soon after becomes smitten with Starlett. From there, it’s a story of boy meets girl (squirrel meets squirrel?) as Squirrelly shares his food and his gathering practices with Starlett, asks her to marry him (over corn and acorns, of course), and starts his own family. Not even a rough thunderstorm can deter Squirrelly from providing Starlett and their soon-to-be brood with the safety and warmth of his own childhood. Accompanied by Makis’ (Icy the Iceberg, 2017) simple, colorful images, this book oscillates awkwardly between storytelling and science lesson, with pages devoted to the structure of certain tree nuts and technical descriptions of bird feeders. There’s some stiff language not usually found in children’s stories (“Due to the fact”; “The final outcome”), which isn’t helped by the italicized vocabulary words sprinkled throughout the tale. Despite this, Squirrelly is a good-hearted character who readers can follow from impatient child to caring adult. Kids who like to imagine the inner lives of squirrels should especially appreciate the anthropomorphic traits of Squirrelly, Starlett, and their families, from their described emotions to their illustrated homes. The moral of the story is hammered home in the final chapter (“An Uncertain Future”) that leaves no guesswork in what message the author wants to impart to children.
A straightforward, vocabulary-rich portrait of a squirrel and his family.Pub Date: July 20, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 64
Publisher: LitFire Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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