A sweet and playful yet serious story.
In Rusu’s picture book, a young girl’s visit to her grandma’s goes wrong at every turn thanks to an obsessive compulsiveness that manifests as an imaginary robot friend.
The narrator, a young redheaded girl, wears robot-themed socks every day, and in doing so imagines a red robot companion constantly by her side: “My robot is AMAZING! / She makes things go just right / and always gets things done her way / from morning until night.” The robot is very particular about routines, which becomes problematic when the girl has to spend a day at her grandma’s. Grandma has the wrong type of soap, the wrong toys, and the wrong color of plate for the cookies: “I sneak a look at the pile of treats / on a blue plate by the sink. / BZZT. BOOP. BRRRR.‘NO! NO! NO!’ / ‘WE ONLY USE THE PINK!’” Will Grandma find a way to placate Robot and salvage the visit? Rusu and illustrator Morón tell a cute and relatable story, depicting not only the girl’s “difficult” behavior but also the condition that underlies it—expressed by way of the oversize, exaggeratedly emotive robot. Morón’s pen-and-ink images capture the protagonists’ personalities as well as the incidental action against uncluttered backdrops. Rusu’s text is rhythmically awkward at times and derives little benefit from being enslaved to an ABCB rhyme pattern. Nonetheless, the book deftly conveys its message and will pull young readers along.
A sweet and playful yet serious story.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780829457094
Page Count: 32
Publisher: 4U2B Books & Media
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A hilarious autumnal comedy of errors.
A confused squirrel overreacts to the falling autumn leaves.
Relaxing on a tree branch, Squirrel admires the red, gold, and orange leaves. Suddenly Squirrel screams, “One of my leaves is…MISSING!” Searching for the leaf, Squirrel tells Bird, “Someone stole my leaf!” Spying Mouse sailing in a leaf boat, Squirrel asks if Mouse stole the leaf. Mouse calmly replies in the negative. Bird reminds Squirrel it’s “perfectly normal to lose a leaf or two at this time of year.” Next morning Squirrel panics again, shrieking, “MORE LEAVES HAVE BEEN STOLEN!” Noticing Woodpecker arranging colorful leaves, Squirrel queries, “Are those my leaves?” Woodpecker tells Squirrel, “No.” Again, Bird assures Squirrel that no one’s taking the leaves and that the same thing happened last year, then encourages Squirrel to relax. Too wired to relax despite some yoga and a bath, the next day Squirrel cries “DISASTER” at the sight of bare branches. Frantic now, Squirrel becomes suspicious upon discovering Bird decorating with multicolored leaves. Is Bird the culprit? In response, Bird shows Squirrel the real Leaf Thief: the wind. Squirrel’s wildly dramatic, misguided, and hyperpossessive reaction to a routine seasonal event becomes a rib-tickling farce through clever use of varying type sizes and weights emphasizing his absurd verbal pronouncements as well as exaggerated, comic facial expressions and body language. Bold colors, arresting perspectives, and intense close-ups enhance Squirrel’s histrionics. Endnotes explain the science behind the phenomenon.
A hilarious autumnal comedy of errors. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-3520-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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