A cozy tale of friendship, mutual aid, neighborliness, and tasty, tasty food.
The neighborhood blintz maker is injured right before the blintz holiday, Shavuot.
Mr. Mintz (light-skinned, with a curly ginger mop) is a neighborly gent. He carries groceries, puts out milk for the cats, and, most importantly, is always there with a bite to eat. A “marvelous cook,” Mr. Mintz gives away most of what he prepares to his neighbors—soup for the sniffly, latkes on Hanukkah, challah for Shabbat, and gooey, tasty blintzes for the spring holiday of Shavuot. But the day before Shavuot, Mr. Mintz takes a tumble off his skateboard. He’s going to be OK, but who will make the “cheesy and apple-y…gooey and delicious” blintzes for the neighborhood? Why, the neighbors, of course! When Mr. Mintz returns from the hospital on crutches, his neighbors are all there to bring him hot tea, kittens—and blintzes. Mr. Mintz’s neighbors, nameless and lacking cultural markers, have a wide variety of skin tones and facial features in the cartoon art. It’s up to the reader to decide whether this gentle, community-minded tale depicts a racially diverse Jewish neighborhood, a neighborhood where people are happy to celebrate other cultures’ traditions, or both. An author’s note provides a two-sentence reference for the religious aspect of the holiday but returns to the focus on food with a blintz recipe. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A cozy tale of friendship, mutual aid, neighborliness, and tasty, tasty food. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68115-589-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Apples & Honey Press
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.
A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.
Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593702901
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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