Lightning can strike twice: 12 years after Wheels on the Bus (1990), Zelinsky offers another pop-up tour de force, infused with humor and replete with astonishing special effects. Rather than huge, explosive constructs à la Robert Sabuda, Zelinsky and his paper engineer have gone for restrained, natural-looking, often multiple movements; as a child rises, dresses, and steps out of his house, the verses of the counting song are acted out on him by a succession of gnomish figures hiding beneath flaps, whisking across cutout windows, or popping out of slots. Some tabs control several actions at once—most notably on the penultimate spread, which not only contains an inventive reprise of the song, but sends all ten of the little old men, plus assorted dogs, rolling separately down a hill with a single pull. In a brilliant final flourish, each little old man literally “plays” his assigned number as if it were a musical instrument, while the lad claps delightedly along. The complex popups require complicated (read: fragile) inner works, but they’re sturdy enough to survive, at least for a while, the enthusiastic knicking and knacking this will certainly inspire. Children aren’t the only readers who’ll want to roll home with this treasure. And everyone will want more than one copy. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-525-46908-7
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
A lushly illustrated homage to librarians who provide a welcome and a home away from home for all who enter.
A love letter to libraries.
A Black child, with hair in two puffballs tied with yellow ribbons, a blue dress with a Peter Pan collar, and black patent leather Mary Janes, helps Grandmother with the housework, then, at Grandmother’s suggestion, heads to the library. The child’s eagerness to go, with two books under an arm and one in their hand, suggests that this is a favorite destination. The books’ wordless covers emphasize their endless possibilities. The protagonist’s description of the library makes clear that they are always free to be themselves there—whether they feel happy or sad, whether they’re reading mysteries or recipes, and whether they feel “quick and smart” or “contained and cautious.” Robinson’s vibrant, carefully composed digital illustrations, with bright colors that invite readers in and textures and patterns in every image, effectively capture the protagonist’s passion for reading and appreciation for a space where they feel accepted regardless of disposition. In her author’s note, Giovanni states that she spent summers visiting her grandmother in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she went to the Carnegie Branch of the Lawson McGhee Library. She expresses gratitude for Mrs. Long, the librarian, who often traveled to the main library to get books that Giovanni could not find in their segregated branch. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A lushly illustrated homage to librarians who provide a welcome and a home away from home for all who enter. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-358-38765-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Versify/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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