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
A funny tale about stress and an ever upping ante, with a comforting end.
Something is preventing Owl from falling asleep.
Owl leans back against his white pillow and headboard. “Squeek!” says something underneath the bed. Owl’s never heard that sound before, so he fastens his pink bathrobe and answers the front door. Nobody. It must be the wind; back to bed. Bidding himself goodnight, he climbs into bed—and hears the noise again. Time after time, he pops out of bed seeking the squeaker. Is it in the cupboard? He empties the shelves. Under the floor? He pulls up his floorboards. As Owl’s actions ratchet up—he destroys the roof and smashes the walls, all in search of the squeak—so does his anxiety. Not until he hunkers down in bed under the night sky (his bed is now outdoors, because the house’s roof and walls are gone), frantically clutching his pillow, does he see what readers have seen all along: a small, gray mouse. In simple illustrations with black outlines, textured coloring, and foreshortened perspective, Pizzoli plays mischievously with mouse placement. Sometimes the mouse is behind Owl or just out of his sightline; other times, the mouse is on a solid, orange-colored page across the spread from Owl, which removes him from Owl’s scene in a rather postmodern manner. Is the mouse toying with Owl? Who knows?
A funny tale about stress and an ever upping ante, with a comforting end. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-1275-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
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