Nothing new—and more discouraging than most, to boot.
A small child colors instead of drawing.
In this first-person narrator’s opinion, other kids are really good at drawing, but he isn’t. Drawing, here, means being representational and realistic. Young readers will notice immediately that the child’s drawings, which the narrator denigrates, look like their own drawings. Sala’s child-style portrayals of puppies, people, and cars are no less skilled than—and quite similar to—typical children’s work; if this child’s drawings are so bad they shouldn’t be attempted, should readers stop drawing too? Never revisiting this assumption, the child seeks expression with artwork but “without drawing anything.” The child uses various hues and types of line (thick, thin, squiggly, jagged) to portray moods (happy, sad, angry,) and vibes (scary; “something full of life”). However, the premise that conveying mood through color and abstract form requires less sophistication than representational drawing is false. Making a self-portrait, this white protagonist imagines hues that will capture various aspects of personality, including “a messy, dark brown”—unfortunately linking brownness with messiness. The watercolor, pencil, and crayon illustrations cohere less than E.B. Lewis’ in Angela Johnson’s Lily Brown’s Paintings (2007), a better choice about a child-artist, with child style beautifully integrated; to explore a dynamic relationship between color and mood, see Tameka Fryer Brown and Shane W. Evans’ My Cold Plum Lemon Pie Bluesy Mood (2013).
Nothing new—and more discouraging than most, to boot. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6275-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree.
A Christmas edition of the beloved alphabet book.
The story starts off nearly identically to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989), written by John Archambault and the late Bill Martin Jr, with the letters A, B, and C deciding to meet in the branches of a tree. This time, they’re attempting to scale a Christmas tree, not a coconut tree, and the letters are strung together like garland. A, B, and C are joined by the other letters, and of course they all “slip, slop, topple, plop!” right down the tree. At the bottom, they discover an assortment of gifts, all in a variety of shapes. As a team, the letters and presents organize themselves to get back up on the Christmas tree and get a star to the top. Holiday iterations of favorite tales often fall flat, but this take succeeds. The gifts are an easy way to reinforce another preschool concept—shapes—and the text uses just enough of the original to be familiar. The rhyming works, sticking to the cadence of the source material. The illustrations pay homage to the late Lois Ehlert’s, featuring the same bold block letters, though they lack some of the whimsy and personality of the original. Otherwise, everything is similarly brightly colored and simply drawn. Those familiar with the classic will be drawn to this one, but newcomers can enjoy it on its own.
A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781665954761
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Fun enough to read once but without enough substance to last.
Familiar crayon characters argue over which color is the essential Christmas color.
Green starts by saying that green is for Christmas. After all, green is for holly. But Red objects. Red is for candy canes. Green is for fir trees, Green retorts. But Red is for Santa Claus, who agrees. (Santa is depicted as a white-bearded White man.) Then White joins the fray. After spending the year being invisible, White isn’t giving up the distinction of association with Christmas. Snow, anyone? But then there’s Silver: stars and bells. And Brown: cookies and reindeer! At this point, everyone is confused. But they come together and agree that Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without all of them together. Someone may get the last word, though. In Daywalt and Jeffers’ now-signature style, the crayon-written text is spare and humorous, while the crayon characters engage with each other against a bare white background, vying for attention. Dot-eyed faces and stick legs on each object turn them all into comical, if similar, personalities. But the series’ original cleverness is absent here, leaving readers with a perfunctory recitation of attributes. Fans of the crayon books may delight in another themed installment; those who aren’t already fans will likely find it lacking. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Fun enough to read once but without enough substance to last. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-35338-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
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