The parts of speech are devilish to explain to young children, and this volume does little to clear up any confusion.
The five most common parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and interjection) frolic on the playground for a day of grammar exploration.
Red Verb starts things off, climbing, sliding, and twirling. Next, blue Noun appears. Noun becomes a person (King Tut), a place (an amusement park or perhaps just a roller coaster), or thing (a menacing dinosaur), though why Noun keeps transforming is not clear. Interjection, Adjective, and Adverb act as peanut gallery. Verb reacts aggressively to Noun, though why their relationship seems to be fraught is never explained nor understood. Once a bee enters the scene, Verb springs into action, first running and hiding, then helping Noun, who is stuck (why this is so is also never made clear). Soon Noun becomes the best thing a noun can ever be: a friend. Fully saturated digital illustrations brimming with energy and excitement are certain to make young readers smile at the antics of all the characters, even if it is not always exactly clear what they are up to. The characters’ T-shirts are labeled with their initials, but even that is a bit fuzzy. The orange child is labeled ADV and the chartreuse one sports an ADJ shirt, but both are actually nouns talking about being adverbs and adjectives.
The parts of speech are devilish to explain to young children, and this volume does little to clear up any confusion. (Picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-93428-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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