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
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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