A good choice for budding philosophers.
A first step into the world of ontology, picture-book style!
Two holes, Hamish and Hermione, try to find a new home when their Swiss cheese is eaten by mice. With nowhere now to live and wishing to be “useful,” they leave the “dreary kitchen” of the royal palace to search for other meaningful locales. The king does not appreciate Hamish’s new location on his sock. Hermione chooses the queen’s knickers, and she is equally distressed. Remember, they are holes. Their choices spiral into a comedy of errors as bike tires deflate, boats sink, and balloons burst. “Everyone thinks we are a nuisance,” says a frustrated yet confident Hamish. “But holes can be useful too.” Ingman’s hand-painted blotches of color show a surprising array of emotions with just two eyes and a mouth each, an occasional blushing cheek, and stick arms and legs. These two characters (portrayed as corporeal even though holes are defined as “nothing”) change color to match their surroundings, like chameleons. They are most frequently portrayed running away, Gingerbread Man–style, from surprised royalty and castle staff, all white. Will they ever find a place to call home? What objects need holes? Bright’s text deftly captures the quest for and fulfillment of true usefulness while allowing for more complex subtleties to percolate.
A good choice for budding philosophers. (Picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: April 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5124-3950-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Andersen Press USA
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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