Minor’s illustrations carry the day, helping readers and whale get past the rescue to the informative backmatter.
Trapped by over 20 ropes set by a crab-trapping boat, each over 200 feet long, a humpback whale struggles to stay alive.
This true story chronicling the daring rescue off the California coast by six scuba divers and three staffers from the Sausalito Marine Mammal Center on Dec. 11, 2005, is vividly portrayed by Minor’s eye-popping gouaches. The 50-ton whale explodes out of the waves and onto the pages. The combination of these beautiful paintings with Burleigh’s strong verb choices makes the opening scenes pulse with energy. “She spanks the cold blue with her powerful tail. Bang!” The actual rescue takes over an hour of careful maneuvering. Unfortunately, a surfeit of adverbs turns the dramatic rescue into a flat recounting of events. “Divers drop cautiously into the frigid water.” As the tension limps across three double-page spreads, Burleigh fails to convey that the whale needs to breathe and is tiring, a fact he only reveals in the backmatter. The abandoned crab-trap gear cuts into the whale; it holds her down. She could die if the divers can’t free her with their knives. Yet a plodding, anticlimactic observation obliterates the oomph factor. “Slowly the tangled netting falls away.”
Minor’s illustrations carry the day, helping readers and whale get past the rescue to the informative backmatter. (resources) (Informational picture book. 4-10)Pub Date: April 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-58089-558-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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