A snowman explores his wintry world with unexpected results in this debut children’s book.
Three friends of different ethnicities decide to give their snowman, named Ice Dream, three special gifts. The children search on a computer for the perfect items and decide on a pair of sparkly marbles for his eyes, a red rosebud for his heart, and a yellow apple for his brain. These three gifts, easily identifiable and given a sense of magic in Dadgar’s images, combine to bring Ice Dream to a kind of life: he’s aware, but to his dismay, he can’t move to follow the children to school. “I wish I could move just once in my life and go where I like,” Ice Dream muses, bemoaning all the things that can run—children, pets, the nearby brook, cars, and airplanes—while he can’t. His secret wish is granted by Angel Cloud, whose feathered crown and wings give her an ethereal look that counters her very earthy bare feet. But, she warns him, by the end of the day, he’ll go through a big transformation. As Ice Dream follows the children’s snowy footprints, he encounters a number of people and creatures who require help. Each time, his special gifts inspire him to feel love, concern, and kindness toward the animal or person in need, and he sacrifices one of his features—his carrot nose to a hungry bunny, his bead buttons to a little girl whose mother can’t afford to buy her beads, his red mittens to a man who, barehanded, helps an old woman get her car out of the snow. Once Ice Dream reaches the school, he’s caught in an exhilarating snowball fight, but his chilly form, without its attributes except the three gifts, crumbles. In Mottahedeh’s charming story about the power of love, the three children find their gifts and realize Ice Dream has changed. When they rebuild him, the gifts bring him back to life, altered and happy (“They all saw that even though he looked the same, there was something wonderfully different about him”). While some children may not adore the illustration style, which is quite abstract, the book offers delightfully diverse characters, heartfelt lessons, and eye-catching colors in the painted compositions. An engaging and beautifully illustrated tale about the bountiful rewards of kindness.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9888829-0-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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