A colorful, warm collection that young readers and poets will savor.
An imaginative young poet makes his debut.
Whether one should look at the art or the artist is an age-old question. In this case, the artist is a 4-year-old who wrote a poem in preschool, fell in love with poetry, and continued to create poems that were then recorded by his mother (and later, as he learned to write, by himself). Accompanied by energetic illustrations full of buoyant, frolicking children of varying races, the results of his first year of writing are striking: imaginative phrases, perceptive moments, and poems that feel finished in a unique way, with some bits and pieces you’d expect from a 4-year-old, not at all a bad thing. As a picture of a precocious and talented child’s perceptions and expressions, these poems are fresh and exciting, while as a collection of memorable poems, this selection presents a preschooler's world. Teachers can use the structures of some of the lines as jumping-off points for students, and kids will be delighted to see the work of a peer in print. The poems themselves capture the newness and excitement of being a child, making friends, loving your mom, hoping, wishing, and learning how to express feelings by painting a picture with words. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A colorful, warm collection that young readers and poets will savor. (Poetry. 4-8)Pub Date: March 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-2316-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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