Tender, if a bit unwieldy from being so heavily back-loaded with background facts.
Stranded on a broken-off ice floe, a polar bear plunges to the rescue when her cub slips off the edge into the sea.
With cold almost tangibly radiating from expanses of ice and dim, hazy skies, even the frisky cub, rolling and tumbling in the feathery March snow, brings barely a hint of warmth to Minor’s frozen Arctic seascapes. Meanwhile his mother stands at the edge of the ice and searches the choppy waters for an unwary seal—until with a “CRACK!” both bears suddenly find themselves floating away from safety on a fragment of ice so small that the cub loses his footing. Before he can drown, his mother dives in after and, bearing him on her back, paddles back to shore, where the two nuzzle affectionately and then wearily pad off toward their unseen den. The disquisitions on climate change and on polar bear behavior, diet, and life cycles that Burleigh tacks on afterward are well meant but seem likewise laborious; younger audiences are likely to respond more to the displays of elemental connection between parent and offspring that infuse the episode and its illustrations.
Tender, if a bit unwieldy from being so heavily back-loaded with background facts. (author’s and artist notes, resource lists) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781419760709
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader!
Fun with friends makes for a great day.
Norbit, a salmon-colored worm with a pink kerchief, joyfully greets the day and everyone he encounters. “Hello, friends! It’s time for fun with the sun! Let’s play!” He and his menagerie of forest pals—including the sun, who grows limbs and descends from the sky—exuberantly engage in various forms of physical activity such as jumping, going down a slide, spinning around, and watching the clouds go by. Young readers will readily relate, as these are games that most children are familiar with. As day turns to night, Norbit says farewell to Sun and welcomes Moon with an invitation to continue the fun. Watkins has created a vivid world of movement and merriment. Her illustrations feature bright bursts of color that match the energy of the text, with most sentences ending in an exclamation point. The author/illustrator incorporates many elements that make for an ideal early-reading experience (despite the use of a contraction or two): art free from clutter, text consisting of words with only one or two syllables, and repetition and recurring bits, such as a continued game of hide-and-seek with Sun. Inspired by never-before-seen sketches from the Dr. Seuss Collection archives at the University of California San Diego, this is the first title for Seuss Studios, a new imprint for original stories from “emerging authors and illustrators” who “honor Seuss’s hallmark spirit of creativity and imagination.”
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader! (author's note) (Early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593646212
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Seuss Studios
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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