Self-worth is always worth bolstering, but the positive message here is clouded by muddled subtexts and visual cues.
Dark-skinned children are more likely to be confused than comforted by this unvarnished esteem-builder.
Looking sheepish and unhappy in the pictures but sounding angry, a young boy cites teasing comments from lighter-skinned peers about his skin color, hair and other features. “I squirmed and wiggled / as they giggled at my teeth so white. / ‘You can be our flashlight at night. / Just smile and we’ll be alright.’ ” The emotional skies clear, though, after his mother supplies both a pep talk (“Look in the mirror and / love what you see!”) and a plate of chocolate cupcakes to share with his erstwhile tormentors. Evans, too, sends a mixed message in the ways he portrays the figures he poses against sketchy urban backdrops. Opposite the line about the narrator’s “flashlight,” the boy’s teeth are both hardly visible (in contrast to the whites of his big, bright eyes) and colored a lower-contrast ivory to boot, and in several scenes his mouth is so inconspicuous and oddly placed that his nose might be mistaken for smiling lips. More troubling, to judge from their postures and expressions, the other children’s mockery may come across to readers as just friendly banter—particularly in light of a final scene that is all frosting-smeared happy faces and mutual amity—instead of the hurtful words the narrator perceives.
Self-worth is always worth bolstering, but the positive message here is clouded by muddled subtexts and visual cues. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-60326-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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