Limitations aside, this is a good starting point to help children to be flexible, focused, and relaxed.
Follow a blissed-out frog’s movement through 18 classic yoga poses.
Yoga Frog models each posture against a brightly colored background. Brief written instructions on the facing pages of each illustration do not explain exactly how to achieve “flow,” particularly how to gracefully switch sides, but the frog’s skinny stick limbs make it easy to identify the ideal position. His two-tone green body and expressive, wide eyes add humor. A final “Note for Parents” reminds them of the benefits of yoga and the importance of breathing through the nose while moving through the poses. A fold-out poster repeats each of the postures, though not in the order shown in the previous pages. Yoga Frog begins with mountain pose, moves through more challenging postures, and ends in the resting pose. The Sanskrit term for each posture is included below the English name. Chambers does not always use the traditional translations. Warrior (virabhadrasana) is called “giraffe”; child’s pose (balasana) becomes “hawk in nest”; hero (virasana) turns to “wolf”; rabbit, (sasangasana) is modified to turtle; the spinal twist (ardha matsyendrasana) is inexplicably changed to “caterpillar”; and bound angle (baddha konasana) is whimsically renamed “butterfly.” This may be confusing as young yogis encounter more standard yoga instruction.
Limitations aside, this is a good starting point to help children to be flexible, focused, and relaxed. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7624-6467-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Running Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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