As a celebration of the codex, it is but one of many; as a celebration of the surreal, it excels.
As a girl sits with her father reading a book, she goes on a fantastical adventure.
The art and layout are unusual from the start. The text begins on the page facing the title page—“Hello there, says Chair,” is printed above an inviting, overstuffed chair in a comfy nook, book on its cushion—and the title page itself continues the text. On the acknowledgment pages, a generic white man sits on Chair with book in hand, and a small white girl—apparently his daughter—climbs up beside him. Gentle rhymes continue the story, as the chair and its occupants glide into the book’s world with “a look, a listen, // and a touch as such.” There follow pages of whimsical paintings of the girl happily interacting with various objects, sometimes oversized, sometimes realistically sized, all of which are described with adjectives and some of which also include extra rhymes: “I am gluey says Snail / (with its tail in a pail.)” The adventures crescendo as the girl flies on a silky crow and sees a steamy “Loco” approaching. Papa suggests a break, and the pair enjoy cocoa and cake on Chair. The ending brings the energy down to a good place for bedtime. Art and text together are enjoyably quirky, but the connection of the girl’s flights of fancy to the reading experience is a little hard to determine, given the frame story’s similarity of tone to the accretion of objects and adjectives within.
As a celebration of the codex, it is but one of many; as a celebration of the surreal, it excels. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-2105-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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