Funny and charming—a winning, worthy follow-up.
The irrepressible Flora returns for an encore avian duet, this time on ice with a penguin.
Similar in feel to Idle’s Caldecott Honor book, Flora and the Flamingo (2013), this wordless picture book follows Flora as she dons her ice skates, spies an intriguing beak poking up through the ice and begins her balletic adventure. Bird and girl meet and greet, then glide, twirl and pirouette together on the ice. Their newfound harmony is disrupted when the penguin spies a fish and disappears rapidly through a hole in the ice, causing Flora to glide away in a sulk. But wait! He was not ignoring her, just bringing her a gift! Having no use for a fish, she casually flips it back into the water, much to the penguin’s chagrin. Now both are in a huff, and Flora grumpily removes her skates. The dangling lace gives her an idea, and she creatively uses it as a fishing line. Penguin is appeased, and now both are engaged in common pursuits, fishing and dancing. Idle’s restrained palette of icy blues and soft grays combined with fluid composition that always leads the eye to the next scene in the drama keep the wordless narrative effortlessly flowing along. Small double-sided flaps on some of the pages expand the visual vocabulary, and a subtle message about friendship and compromise is conveyed.
Funny and charming—a winning, worthy follow-up. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2891-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
Safe to creep on by.
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)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.
A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.
Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593702901
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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