Entertaining writing and appealing illustrations encourage kids to tap into their resources.
A boy channels his inner Ninja for courage and motivation in this debut picture book.
Milo is a young, active white boy with tons of energy—except in the morning. When he wakes up, he snuggles deeper into his bed, “a glorious cocoon of warm, cozy goodness,” and imagines staying there forever. Getting to school is a battle. But ever since he was 3 years old, Milo has had an “awesome” Tiny Ninja companion, a masked figure just like himself who is brave, considerate, and strong. One night, Milo’s mom asks him to be on time the next morning, because she has an important meeting. He agrees, but when he wakes, he stays under the covers. Tiny Ninja comes to the rescue. Milo’s companion gets the boy ready for school in no time, making the child’s mother proud. Tiny Ninja assures Milo he’ll always be with him. Throughout, several full-spread illustrations invite readers to find the hidden Ninjas, allowing them to practice attention to detail. In her series opener, Graham uses the tiny but fierce Ninja as a clever metaphor for the duller-sounding concepts of responsibility and growing up. Also enlivening is the author’s amusing narration, as when Milo avoids fault by pretending: “I’m a helpless dinosaur. The tar pits are sucking me in!” The pastel images by Valieva (The Can Be Book, 2018) are alive with personality, incident, and detail, especially in the search-for-Ninjas pages.
Entertaining writing and appealing illustrations encourage kids to tap into their resources.Pub Date: April 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64237-467-4
Page Count: 42
Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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