A metaphorical miss.
A big brother helps his little sister calm down.
The cover art depicts the first-person narrator, a little boy of color with brown skin and curly black hair, looking at a red-furred monster sticking out its tongue. The front endpapers then depict a broken blue crayon on top of scribbled lines in warm hues on a blue background. Turn to the title page, and the narrator holds a pile of furry-looking things in reddish, yellow, and green hues while blue hands reach toward him from the right. The first spread with text then shows the boy looking wide-eyed at readers while seated at an art table. A red, spiky mass covers the bottom of the spread, which is supposed to represent Allie (or rather, the top of Allie’s head), in a rage after her crayon breaks. These crucial spreads are difficult to follow, and it will take concrete little thinkers some time to come to understand that Allie did not look like this prior to the beginning of the book. Instead, the book starts with the monstrous image, and Reul uses expressive color to indicate Allie’s rage as she pitches a fit in the form of the red monster. She literally sheds her red skin and shifts colors to yellow, then green, then blue as her big brother tries various calming techniques. Finally, she emerges as a little girl of color by book’s end, and she requests a hug.
A metaphorical miss. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4549-2858-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original...
A sweetened, condensed version of the best-selling picture book, The Kissing Hand.
As in the original, Chester Raccoon is nervous about attending Owl’s night school (raccoons are nocturnal). His mom kisses him on the paw and reminds him, “With a Kissing Hand… / We’ll never be apart.” The text boils the story down to its key elements, causing this version to feel rushed. Gone is the list of fun things Chester will get to do at school. Fans of the original may be disappointed that this board edition uses a different illustrator. Gibson’s work is equally sentimental, but her renderings are stiff and flat in comparison to the watercolors of Harper and Leak. Very young readers will probably not understand that Owl’s tree, filled with opossums, a squirrel, a chipmunk and others, is supposed to be a school.
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original shouldn’t look to this version as replacement for their page-worn copies. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-933718-77-4
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This TV rerun in board-book form has nothing new to offer.
Peppa hopes to join her classmates in a Halloween pumpkin competition in this adaptation of a story from the popular British television program Peppa Pig.
With the help of Granny and Grandpa Pig, Peppa turns her giant pumpkin, which is the size of a compact car, into a jack-o’-lantern. The trio is flummoxed when it comes time to transport the pumpkin to the competition, so they call on Miss Rabbit and her helicopter to airlift the pumpkin to the festivities as Peppa and her grandparents ride inside. Peppa arrives just in time for the contest and wins the prize for best flying pumpkin. The scenes look as if they are pulled directly from the television show, right down to the rectangular framing of some of the scenes. While the story is literally nothing new, the text is serviceable, describing the action in two to three sentences per page. The pumpkin-shaped book and orange foil cover will likely attract youngsters, whether they are Peppa fans or not.
This TV rerun in board-book form has nothing new to offer. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-33922-2
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
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