A real tail wagger.
A new dog in town has trouble making friends.
The pooch introduces himself with a message sprayed in urine on a brick wall: “Hello I am Toby.” Unfortunately, other olfactory messages—translated into signage readable by humans in watercolor, pencil, and ink illustrations reminiscent of Shirley Hughes’ work in their luminosity and brushwork—drown out the greeting. Worse yet, a further friendly smellogram on the sidewalk is so garbled by rain, garbage collectors, and the feet of passersby that Toby’s four-footed neighbors mistake him for a mean dog. What’s a lonely mutt to do? Dog lovers will delight in the canine rushes of various Fidos cavorting energetically across the urban scenes and endpapers (human figures remain hazy and peripheral, though seemingly racially diverse) and yelp with pleasure at Toby’s distinctly doggy solution to his dilemma. Confronted in the park by a tense, hostile pack, he approaches slowly and then suddenly drops his front end in classic “DO YOU WANT TO…CHASE ME?” posture. The canines respond with a howling chorus of “YES!” and the ice is instantly broken in a wild, gleeful rumpus. Heder may take a bit of artistic license in depicting over a dozen dogs unleashed in an apparently unfenced urban park setting, but young readers who’ve found themselves in a situation like Toby’s will take comfort in the cathartic close. The messages that the dogs convey in urine are hilariously apt: “Suki’s stick,” “Don’t trust the squirrels,” and “Anyone for a howl?”
A real tail wagger. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781419757518
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back.
With such short arms, how can Tiny T. Rex give a sad friend a hug?
Fleck goes for cute in the simple, minimally detailed illustrations, drawing the diminutive theropod with a chubby turquoise body and little nubs for limbs under a massive, squared-off head. Impelled by the sight of stegosaurian buddy Pointy looking glum, little Tiny sets out to attempt the seemingly impossible, a comforting hug. Having made the rounds seeking advice—the dino’s pea-green dad recommends math; purple, New Age aunt offers cucumber juice (“That is disgusting”); red mom tells him that it’s OK not to be able to hug (“You are tiny, but your heart is big!”), and blue and yellow older sibs suggest practice—Tiny takes up the last as the most immediately useful notion. Unfortunately, the “tree” the little reptile tries to hug turns out to be a pterodactyl’s leg. “Now I am falling,” Tiny notes in the consistently self-referential narrative. “I should not have let go.” Fortunately, Tiny lands on Pointy’s head, and the proclamation that though Rexes’ hugs may be tiny, “I will do my very best because you are my very best friend” proves just the mood-lightening ticket. “Thank you, Tiny. That was the biggest hug ever.” Young audiences always find the “clueless grown-ups” trope a knee-slapper, the overall tone never turns preachy, and Tiny’s instinctive kindness definitely puts him at (gentle) odds with the dinky dino star of Bob Shea’s Dinosaur Vs. series.
Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7033-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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