“Presto!” intones Will whenever he witnesses the “magic” of his family’s mailbox: letters appear and disappear when no one is looking. Sadly, the magic falls flat for Will—he never gets mail. Encouraged by his mother’s example, Will mails a missive to himself and receives it two days later. The experience proves underwhelming because, after all, the letter yields no surprises. Shortly thereafter, however, Will spies, on a box of his favorite cereal, a picture of a boy and girl mailing letters. Reading further, he discovers this is an advertising promotion: each child is sending away labels from three of these boxes in order to receive personalized cereal bowls in the mail. Eating lots more Magic Charms than usual and plying everyone he knows with it, Will soon empties the required three boxes, snips off the labels, and mails them away. The abracadabra is long in coming, but finally the bowl, emblazoned “Will the Great” arrives. Is Will going to fill it with cereal? Of course not. Now emboldened by his magic powers, Will declares that he's going to fill it with oats—for the horse he’s planning to send away for from yet another cereal company! Poydar’s (First Day, Hooray!, 1999, etc.) writing is not particularly felicitous here, but she does capture the allure of getting a letter. Collage bits of magazines, catalogues, and postcards add a little panache to the scenes of endlessly open-mouthed, round-eyed characters. The text does include some clearly laid-out information about how mail is handled and also some helpful pointers for children on how to address envelopes correctly. Good for introducing the concept of getting mail. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2000
ISBN: 0-8234-1525-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
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
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BOOK REVIEW
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