This fails to stand out on the crowded bedtime/dreamland shelf.
Talk-show host Kloots’ first children’s book is an imaginative bedtime book about dreams and a tribute to her late husband.
A blond, light-skinned mother cuddles at bedtime with her light-skinned child, who has short, curly blond hair. From the toys scattered in the room and the bedding, it’s clear this tot loves vehicles of all sorts, so it’s not surprising that when mom guides the child to talk about where their dreams will take them, a garbage truck leaps to mind. It’s green, just like their toy one, and their father, a man with light skin, brown hair, and some beard scruff, is driving. As the duo go for a ride, suddenly the truck morphs into a plane that they fly through a rainbow and land on a beach, where they make a train that they drive into the ocean and then back home again. The mother mostly narrates this adventure, with the child’s brief sound effects, comments, and “I love you, Dada,” in a colored font. The text can be a bit stiff, the language workmanlike. Willmore’s mixed media, pencil, and digital cartoon illustrations are full of bright colors and imaginative details, though the humans are rather wooden, their mouths wide open on almost every page. The only evidence of the father is in the child’s imagination/dreams. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
This fails to stand out on the crowded bedtime/dreamland shelf. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9780063225114
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK REVIEW
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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BOOK REVIEW
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