Sure to get toddlers and early readers dancing.
Sedaka rewrites "Calendar Girl" for the Stone Age set.
Neil's son, Marc, reworks the lyrics of his father’s famous song. Endpapers show a happy little boy sliding down a dinosaur's tail, and the title page depicts him lugging a big purple egg down the street as a puzzled pooch looks on. "I love, I love, I love / my dinosaur pet," the text begins, offering 13 additional bright two-page pictures (one for each month and a bonus). In January, the egg hatches: "[H]e's breaking out of his shell." Then February: "His body's starting to swell." (He's bright green with purple stripes.) And so it goes through the year, with the dinosaur growing bigger and bigger. In April, "when he sleeps with me / he crushes the bed." In July, "like the fireworks, / he touches the sky." September, "just the tail alone is / thirty feet long." And December, "come the new year, things are / gonna get rough." The final picture has the little boy seated at a piano, which the dinosaur is large enough to wrap all the way around, head and tail crossing. The dinosaur, the illustrations and the book itself are all appropriately big, and it's hard to beat the catchiness of the tune. The accompanying CD features this track for children and two more, all performed by Neil Sedaka.
Sure to get toddlers and early readers dancing. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-936140-36-7
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Imagine Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012
Still, this young boy’s imagination is a powerful force for helping him deal with life, something that should be true for...
Oliver, of first-day-of-school alligator fame, is back, imagining adventures and still struggling to find balance between introversion and extroversion.
“When Oliver found his egg…” on the playground, mint-green backgrounds signifying Oliver’s flight into fancy slowly grow larger until they take up entire spreads; Oliver’s creature, white and dinosaurlike with orange polka dots, grows larger with them. Their adventures include sharing treats, sailing the seas and going into outer space. A classmate’s yell brings him back to reality, where readers see him sitting on top of a rock. Even considering Schmid’s scribbly style, readers can almost see the wheels turning in his head as he ponders the girl and whether or not to give up his solitary play. “But when Oliver found his rock… // Oliver imagined many adventures // with all his friends!” This last is on a double gatefold that opens to show the children enjoying the creature’s slippery curves. A final wordless spread depicts all the children sitting on rocks, expressions gleeful, wondering, waiting, hopeful. The illustrations, done in pastel pencil and digital color, again make masterful use of white space and page turns, although this tale is not nearly as funny or tongue-in-cheek as Oliver and His Alligator (2013), nor is its message as clear and immediately accessible to children.
Still, this young boy’s imagination is a powerful force for helping him deal with life, something that should be true for all children but sadly isn’t. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-7573-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
This is a tremendously moving story, but some people will be moved only on the second reading, after they’ve Googled “How to...
A hug shouldn’t require an instruction manual—but some do.
A porcupine can frighten even the largest animal. In this picture book, a bear and a deer, along with a small rabbit, each run away when they hear eight simple words and their name: “I need a hug. Will you cuddle me,…?” As they flee, each utters a definitive refusal that rhymes with their name. The repetitive structure gives Blabey plenty of opportunities for humor, because every animal responds to the question with an outlandish, pop-eyed expression of panic. But the understated moments are even funnier. Each animal takes a moment to think over the request, and the drawings are nuanced enough that readers can see the creatures react with slowly building anxiety or, sometimes, a glassy stare. These silent reaction shots not only show exquisite comic timing, but they make the rhymes in the text feel pleasingly subtle by delaying the final line in each stanza. The story is a sort of fable about tolerance. It turns out that a porcupine can give a perfectly adequate hug when its quills are flat and relaxed, but no one stays around long enough to find out except for an animal that has its own experiences with intolerance: a snake. It’s an apt, touching moral, but the climax may confuse some readers as they try to figure out the precise mechanics of the embrace.
This is a tremendously moving story, but some people will be moved only on the second reading, after they’ve Googled “How to pet a porcupine.” (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-29710-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
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