A jaunt to the seashore has an unexpected ending for a young explorer who investigates the sea using her five senses. In turn, the sea seems to examine the little girl. “I touched the cold and foamy wet. We splashed and danced each time we met.” Cash’s simple rhymes offer readers playful, easily grasped examples of the five senses: the tangy smell of the air, the roar of the waves, etc. A close encounter with an inquisitive jellyfish puts an end to the girl’s fun. At that point the young protagonist erupts into a fury of toddler proportions. “Stupid water! Stupid land! Stupid salt! Stupid sand!” Her tirade continues for two pages, as she castigates the sea and its creatures. The realistically rendered tantrum is certain to cause a cascade of giggles from young readers, although whether adults will wish to share the vituperative outpouring of the word “stupid” with their children or charges is another story. The comic edge of the illustrations takes the sting, so to speak, out of the debatable word choice, humorously depicting the young girl stomping about with a ferocious scowl. A soothing soak in the tub returns the child’s equanimity and, with that, her fondness for the sea. Cash’s brightly colored pictures offer an engaging range of perspectives to intrigue readers. Brilliant swaths of blue flow across the white backdrop of the horizon, vibrantly contrasting with the intense yellow hues of the beach. Comical touches keep the laughs coming—as in the two-page spread which depicts the girl hollering full tilt in the back of her car while at the side of the road, an apologetic-looking jellyfish dolefully watches the passing vehicle. However, the sparkling artwork and initially effervescent tone is somewhat dimmed by the capricious twists of the tale. (Picture book. 2-6)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-89966-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
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
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
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