An enchantingly cozy world of window seats, trellises and rose-patterned curtains is Tom’s little grandmother’s physical world, and her home’s familiar surroundings help comfort her deteriorating brain. Soft watercolors and ink create an ordered loveliness, which complement the equally gentle rhyming couplets. Her mental condition worsens, so on the last pages, she is living with her son’s family, no longer able to live at home: “My little grandmother lives with me now. She doesn’t know why and she doesn’t know how. She can’t find her cat, and she loses her way”—yet she feels safe, because she has Tom, who looks like Roy, her beloved son when he was a boy, “so she thinks she will stay.” Tom describes his relationship with her in simple descriptive words, evocative of grandmother’s confusion and deepening loss. Though he’s as tall as a grocery-store shopping cart, she isn’t much taller and his confident presence makes all the difference. This is a truly brilliant treatment of memory loss, in which grandmother’s connection with her life is found again and again in little flashes because of her favorite things being close at hand: blue-china teacup, big orange cat and Tom. Worlds of understanding flow from Lindbergh, whose long experience with her own mother’s slow demise enlightens each page with tender reality. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-7636-1989-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Lola’s daddy takes her to the library every Saturday, where she finds “excellent books,” and every night her mommy or daddy reads them to her. The next day Lola acts out the story. On Sunday she’s a fairy princess; on Monday she takes her toy animals “on fantastic trips to places like Paris”; on Wednesday she’s a tiger, etc. Each new book and day provides Lola with a variety of tales to play out, with the last one—which is about a wild monster—posing the question, “What will Lola be tomorrow?” The final page shows her in a wolf suit just like Max’s. The library books, the pretending and the incorporation of the days of the week work together as a simple and pleasing premise. Beardshaw’s acrylic illustrations depict the multicultural kids and Lola’s black family with childlike charm, while the title will have librarians, parents and booksellers smiling. Alert: The book will be an invitation for lap kids to follow Lola’s lead—not such a bad thing. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-258-2
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2010
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