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MEL AND MO'S MARVELOUS BALANCING ACT

Name: MEL AND MO'S MARVELOUS BALANCING ACT
Author: Nicola Winstanley
ISBN: 978-1-77321-324-8

by Nicola Winstanley ; illustrated by Marianne Ferrer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 8, 2019

Mel’s and Mo’s seemingly silly professions make for an amusing approach to teamwork.

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Identical twins prove the value of compromise.

Although Mel and Mo look alike, the identical twins have little in common. An escalation in contrast that begins with Mel’s preference for reading a book inside on a rainy day and Mo’s partiality to enjoying catching rays on a sunny day ultimately finds the twins disagreeing all the time and growing further apart. Clues in the patterned illustrations hint at the twins’ future—and separate—professions. Mel takes over the family umbrella business, while Mo runs away to join a circus, becoming a unicyclist with performing poodles on a high-wire act. Most picture books about twins would end here, celebrating their individuality, but Winstanley continues this story with another theme. After both twins find years of success, Theodora Tweedle’s Spectacular Raincoats and Roller Skates comes to town, and soon no one wants umbrellas or to watch a unicyclist. Mel fails to sell bigger umbrellas, and Mo’s increasingly elaborate tricks all end in falling. But one day when Mel visits Mo, who is struggling to stay balanced, the twins realize what the act needs—an umbrella! They discover they can combine their different strengths to make a strong team, and even invite Theodora to join them for a brand-new Roller-Skate Umbrella Circus. The twins, who are white, are not identified with gender-specific names, clothes, physical features, or pronouns.

Mel’s and Mo’s seemingly silly professions make for an amusing approach to teamwork. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-77321-324-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Annick Press

Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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HOW TO TEACH YOUR CAT A TRICK
by Nicola Winstanley ; illustrated by Zoe Si

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HOW TO GIVE YOUR CAT A BATH
by Nicola Winstanley ; illustrated by John Martz

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A BEDTIME YARN
by Nicola Winstanley ; illustrated by Olivia Chin Mueller

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LOVE FROM THE CRAYONS

by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 24, 2019

As ephemeral as a valentine.

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Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.

Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.

As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)

Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Penguin Workshop

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS

- BOOK REVIEW
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY FROM THE CRAYONS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

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HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY FROM THE CRAYONS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

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THE CRAYONS GIVE THANKS
by Drew Daywalt & illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

- SEEN & HEARD
Daywalt, Jeffers Collaborate on New ‘Crayons’ Book

- SEEN & HEARD
Daywalt, Jeffers Collaborate on New ‘Crayons’ Book

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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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)