A jolly treat with a sweet acknowledgement of the gifts teachers give their students all year long.
In his third exploratory adventure, the gregarious Gingerbread Man scampers through town delivering gifts to community helpers.
As Christmas approaches, the Gingerbread Man goes back to school to help a classroom of kids prepare cards, cookies, and songs for their adult friends around town. With their teacher, the group delivers their gifts to a wide variety of adults in helping occupations, including workers in shops, offices, and on city streets. Both the schoolchildren and the community workers include people of different ethnicities, and the adult characters include a female police officer, vet, and doctor. The Gingerbread Man goes off on his own to deliver a special card to the baker who helped create him, and in return she makes him some new chocolate boots to protect his crumbling feet from the snow. Back at school the Gingerbread Man and the kids present their teacher with a touching tribute and a special thank-you banner. The rhyming text is patter-perfect, with lots of humor and action and nicely supported by busy, computer-generated illustrations with the story skillfully integrated in text blocks and speech balloons. The journey through town required a sophisticated design to include all the group’s stops, but their travels are clearly conveyed, even including a map of the community.
A jolly treat with a sweet acknowledgement of the gifts teachers give their students all year long. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-16866-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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