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
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
Girl science power and new friendships make for a good combination.
In Fliess’ update, Mary is an inventive scientist, but she’s a lonely one.
“Mary had a little lab. / She tested and created. / While other kids were at the park, / she built and calculated.” The window of her lab provides views of the kids’ fun, and they inspire her to make a friend. Literally. She bikes to a farm for a snip of wool and heads back to use her latest invention: the Sheepinator. The resultant pet is everything she could hope for, not only providing companionship, but also helping out around the house and lab. And when he follows her to school, the kids all ask for their own wooly friends. What could possibly go wrong? Bouloubasis’ hysterical illustrations show the chaos that ensues, but the scientist and her new human friends think of a clever solution that leaves the whole town satisfied…and warm. Fliess’ verses include enough of the original poem (but tweaked) to tickle readers’ funny bones, and the rhyme and rhythm are spot-on. Mary is a wild-haired white redhead who is depicted as safety-conscious (bike helmet, ear protection, rubber gloves, etc.); the other kids are a diverse group. Most diverse (and somewhat distracting) of all are the noses on their faces—all sizes, shapes, and colors.
Girl science power and new friendships make for a good combination. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8075-4982-7
Page Count: 37
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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