On Christmas Eve, the one night of the year that all the animals can gather together without fear, the creatures of the north woods await the arrival of Bear Noel. The cumulative tale begins with this singular figure, dressed in shearling and burdened under a huge, heavy brown sack journeying through the “deep white drifts” to bring Christmas to all the animals. First to notice is Hare, who whispers, “ ‘He is coming.’ ” “ ‘Who is coming?’ Wolf asks. ‘Bear Noel!’ Hare cries.” “In the distance they hear the thump of heavy footfalls in the forest.” Then Fox, Boar, Hedgehog, Owl, Mole, and Possum assemble to the repetitive refrain, “He is singing. . . . He is laughing. . . . He is jingling his bells. . . . He is coming.” Dunrea (The Boy Who Loved to Draw, 1999, etc.) moves from his signature folk-art technique to a more realistic style appropriate to the shimmering quality of the story. Using a wide canvas of double-paged spreads, he creates a high horizon by leaving spacious swathes of rough watercolor paper empty of paint, depicting the deep snow on the forest floor. The evening sky is radiantly accomplished in rich shades of navy; woods of dark green firs and gray birches provide an exquisite backdrop for a winter snowfall created by spattering tiny drops of white gouache. The forest animals are each lovingly and realistically portrayed. The attention to detail is remarkable, from the tiny hairs on Bear Noel’s ears to the bark of birch trees. In the end, his work completed, Bear Noel turns his back to the reader and climbs a hill. He stands in the distance, dwarfed by enormous boulders and leaves only his paw prints in the snow. Satisfying to the last wordless page. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2000
ISBN: 0-374-39990-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As ephemeral as a valentine.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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