This book is heavy on concept and light on execution, and readers may be yawning before the end
Characters from familiar road signs come to life at night and get up to a bit of mischief in this nearly wordless book.
The leaping deer reaches up to sample the leaves from a tree; the farmer and tractor get busy plowing in the cornfield; the person who uses a wheelchair wheels away; the road-crew worker creates a sand castle with their shovel; the school child in trousers woos the one in a skirt with a flower; the running “[child] at play” goes for a swing; the two children on the seesaw pull down the toy and join the others in a quaint procession as they march up a hill together. The group removes the yellow circle from a traffic-signal sign and use the seesaw to fling it into the sky, where it becomes…the rising sun. They celebrate and then disperse. As a school bus approaches at the end, the deer is back in its place on the sign, leaving readers to infer the others are on their signs as well. The stark, computer-drawn landscapes are clearly intended to coordinate with the black silhouettes of the road-sign figures; however once readers get the premise, there is not much else to engage their attention, since the vast majority of this unusually long book is occupied by buildup.
This book is heavy on concept and light on execution, and readers may be yawning before the end . (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1210-1
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
While there are many rhyming truck books out there, this stands out for being a collection of poems.
Rhyming poems introduce children to anthropomorphized trucks of all sorts, as well as the jobs that they do.
Adorable multiethnic children are the drivers of these 16 trucks—from construction equipment to city trucks, rescue vehicles and a semi—easily standing in for readers, a point made very clear on the final spread. Varying rhyme schemes and poem lengths help keep readers’ attention. For the most part, the rhymes and rhythms work, as in this, from “Cement Mixer”: “No time to wait; / he can’t sit still. / He has to beg your pardon. / For if he dawdles on the way, / his slushy load will harden.” Slonim’s trucks each sport an expressive pair of eyes, but the anthropomorphism stops there, at least in the pictures—Vestergaard sometimes takes it too far, as in “Bulldozer”: “He’s not a bully, either, / although he’s big and tough. / He waits his turn, plays well with friends, / and pushes just enough.” A few trucks’ jobs get short shrift, to mixed effect: “Skid-Steer Loader” focuses on how this truck moves without the typical steering wheel, but “Semi” runs with a royalty analogy and fails to truly impart any knowledge. The acrylic-and-charcoal artwork, set against white backgrounds, keeps the focus on the trucks and the jobs they are doing.
While there are many rhyming truck books out there, this stands out for being a collection of poems. (Picture book/poetry. 3-6)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5078-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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