Hendrix’s richly detailed, brightly colored spreads make the book visually engaging, but on the whole it feels out of sync...
McToad likes Thursdays, the day he mows Tiny Island.
Every Thursday, he rides the mower out of the shed onto his big truck and puts the mower onto a train with a forklift. The train takes the mower to the airport, where it is carried by conveyor belt to an airplane. The mower is flown to the other side of the island, where a baggage buggy takes it to a helicopter that transports it to a dock. There, it is lowered by crane onto a boat, then sailed to the island. The island is truly tiny; in fact the mower takes up most of the small lawn that sits atop the island. The task at hand is swiftly completed (after a sip of lemonade for McToad and an oil refill for the tractor), and an arrowed diagram shows the mower returning home by the same route in reverse. The book jacket proclaims this “a transportation tale,” and it certainly covers a dizzying array of modes, but at a time when the scientific community—and even the pope—is issuing ever sterner warnings about climate change, it’s hard not to see McToad’s weekly odyssey as anything but an unnecessary journey and a profligate consumption of resources. The black smoke issuing from McToad’s tractor chimney throughout as well as the patent ludicrousness of the entire endeavor only serves to emphasize this.
Hendrix’s richly detailed, brightly colored spreads make the book visually engaging, but on the whole it feels out of sync with evolving sensibilities and awareness. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1650-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
A funny tale about stress and an ever upping ante, with a comforting end.
Something is preventing Owl from falling asleep.
Owl leans back against his white pillow and headboard. “Squeek!” says something underneath the bed. Owl’s never heard that sound before, so he fastens his pink bathrobe and answers the front door. Nobody. It must be the wind; back to bed. Bidding himself goodnight, he climbs into bed—and hears the noise again. Time after time, he pops out of bed seeking the squeaker. Is it in the cupboard? He empties the shelves. Under the floor? He pulls up his floorboards. As Owl’s actions ratchet up—he destroys the roof and smashes the walls, all in search of the squeak—so does his anxiety. Not until he hunkers down in bed under the night sky (his bed is now outdoors, because the house’s roof and walls are gone), frantically clutching his pillow, does he see what readers have seen all along: a small, gray mouse. In simple illustrations with black outlines, textured coloring, and foreshortened perspective, Pizzoli plays mischievously with mouse placement. Sometimes the mouse is behind Owl or just out of his sightline; other times, the mouse is on a solid, orange-colored page across the spread from Owl, which removes him from Owl’s scene in a rather postmodern manner. Is the mouse toying with Owl? Who knows?
A funny tale about stress and an ever upping ante, with a comforting end. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-1275-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
Animated and educational.
A hare and a ground squirrel banter about the differences between related animals that are often confused for one another.
Jack is “no Flopsy, Mopsy, or Cottontail,” but a “H-A-R-E, hare!” Like sheep and goats, or turtles and tortoises, rabbits and hares may look similar, but hares are bigger, their fur changes color in the winter, and they are born with their eyes wide open. As the ground squirrel (not to be mistaken for a chipmunk (even though Jack cheekily calls it “Chippie”) and Jack engage in playful discussion about animals, a sneaky coyote prowls after them through the Sonoran Desert. This picture book conveys the full narrative in spirited, speech-bubbled dialogue set on expressive illustrations of talking animals. Dark outlines around the characters make their shapes pop against the softly blended colors of the desert backgrounds. Snappy back-and-forth paired with repetition and occasional rhyme enhances the story’s appeal as a read-aloud. As the story progresses, the colors of the sky shift from dawn to dusk, providing subtle, visual bookends for the narrative. One page of backmatter offers a quick guide to eight easily confused pairs, and a second turns a subsequent exploration of the book into a seek-and-find of 15 creatures (and one dessert) hidden in the desert. Unfortunately, while most of the creatures from the seek-and-find appear in poses that match the illustrations in the challenge, not all of them are consistently represented. (This book was reviewed digitally with 7-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at 53.3% of actual size.)
Animated and educational. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-12506-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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