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CHRISTMAS IN THE BARN

Name: CHRISTMAS IN THE BARN
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
ISBN: 978-0-06-237986-3

by Margaret Wise Brown ; illustrated by Anna Dewdney ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 20, 2016

Despite these minor quibbles, a new edition of any of Brown’s work is a gift worth celebrating.

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Brown’s Nativity story, first published in 1952, is updated with new art from the illustrator of the popular Llama Llama series.

The poetic, simple text follows Joseph and Mary as they are shown into the barn, where the animals wait. After the baby is born, the shepherds and wise men arrive, and an overhead perspective shows the whole cast of characters surrounding the newborn, “all safe and warm.” Dewdney’s striking, mixed-media paintings have a loose, post-impressionistic flavor, with some areas showing her brush strokes or the texture of the canvas surface. She employs a variety of perspectives and sometimes shows characters as dark, incomplete silhouettes. The faces of the animal characters have the most personality, while the faces of the humans are less distinct and sometimes even blurry. Two of the wise men have dark skin; the other people have light skin. Brown’s short, rhyming text is accessible and satisfying, with clever inclusions of well-known phrases from traditional Christmas carols, and her characteristic mastery of rhyme, rhythm, and repetition is on full display. Not all of her word pairs are exact rhymes, but they work nonetheless. One page includes the rhyming word pair grass/ass, which may require some explanation, as well as the unfamiliar word “kine,” an archaic plural for cows.

Despite these minor quibbles, a new edition of any of Brown’s work is a gift worth celebrating. (Picture book/religion. 2-6)

Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-237986-3

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS | CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
TWO LITTLE TRAINS
by Margaret Wise Brown ; illustrated by Greg Pizzoli

- BOOK REVIEW
A HOME IN THE BARN
by Margaret Wise Brown ; illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

- BOOK REVIEW
GOOD DAY, GOOD NIGHT
by Margaret Wise Brown ; illustrated by Loren Long

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LITTLE BLUE TRUCK'S CHRISTMAS

by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 2014

Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION

- BOOK REVIEW
LITTLE BLUE TRUCK MAKES A FRIEND
by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry

- BOOK REVIEW
TIME FOR SCHOOL, LITTLE BLUE TRUCK
by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by John Joseph

- BOOK REVIEW
LITTLE BLUE TRUCK'S VALENTINE
by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by John Joseph

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LOVE FROM THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2015

Safe to creep on by.

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Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.

In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.

Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)