Refreshingly, an autumn book that isn’t about Halloween.
Once a year, families and farmers bring barrow-loads of squash for the zoo animals.
Popular novelist Meissner branches out into children’s picture books with this joyous paean to animals and pumpkins. We learn that pumpkins are “crunchy” and “slippery” and that they have seeds. Every page conveys the same message: The animals really like eating the pumpkins! Some rhymes are slightly strained (tummies is rhymed with yummy), and to fill out a line, the author sometimes resorts to repetition: “it’s true, it’s true”; “make way, make way!” Luckily, the exuberant illustrations carry the day. True to Pino’s usual style, the animals are cute, fluffy, and capable of behavior that their wild counterparts aren’t. An airborne hippo leaps acrobatically to grab a lobbed pumpkin, jaws agape in a hungry smile; Dumbo-esque elephants grin toothily. Most of the eating occurs against the backdrop of a zoo with very casual fencing, where zebras cavort close to tiger predators, separated only by a moat. Overindulging produces distended bellies and a peaceable kingdom, with the fiercest carnivores ignoring prey just a paw-length away. Green and brown are relieved by the bright orange on every page. Though most pumpkin-related books are typically tied to spooky season, there are no jack-o’-lanterns here—just voracious animals and the gourds they love. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Refreshingly, an autumn book that isn’t about Halloween. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781400243389
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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