Czernecki’s patchwork illustrations make a bright and busy visual impression, but can’t quite carry San Souci’s bland, predictable tale. “I’m just special,” insists Zigzag, the new cloth doll, to which the other dolls in the store jeeringly respond, “You’re just ugly,” and push him off the shelf into the trash. Out he goes in the morning, on a journey that ends, of course, in the arms of an adoring little girl. Depicted as if made from many small patches of gingham and other patterned scraps, and with a stitched zigzag mouth that, natch, curves into a smile at the end, Zigzag is plainly intended to stand in for any child ostracized for physical differences. But the theme has seen so many more spirited treatments, from “The Ugly Duckling” on, that this one is unlikely to make much of an impression. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-87483-764-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little Folk/August House
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2005
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
A sweet iteration of the “Big Bad Wolf Mellows Out” theme. Here, an old wolf does some soul searching and then learns to like vegetable stew after a half-frozen lamb appears on his doorstep, falls asleep in his arms, then wakes to give him a kiss. “I can’t eat a lamb who needs me! I might get heartburn!” he concludes. Clad in striped leggings and a sleeveless pullover decorated with bands of evergreens, the wolf comes across as anything but dangerous, and the lamb looks like a human child in a fleecy overcoat. No dreams are likely to be disturbed by this book, but hardened members of the Oshkosh set might prefer the more credible predators and sense of threat in John Rocco’s Wolf! Wolf! (March 2007) or Delphine Perrot’s Big Bad Wolf and Me (2006). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-58925-067-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
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