A didactic pipe dream.
Stewart tenders a piece of puff pastry that wishes nothing more than to send its readers to slumberland.
This book, with its handsome artwork but thin-as-gruel text, may find its readers snug asleep in bed, but purely unintentionally. The bald intent here is to instruct: If you sense your mother’s nearness when you wake late in the dark of night, you will feel her loving protectiveness, close your eyes and find your way back to sleep. To be kind, if your child is a committed spiritualist or a Zen adept, this may work, but most adult readers will find themselves muttering, “As if.” The mother and cub spend the day flexing the cub’s newfound abilities—jumping in the grass, climbing the rocks—and the mother, in the refrain, reminds the cub that he is doing it “all by yourself”: the unsubtle hint that he is not sleeping by himself yet, is he? These reminders give way to the mystical. “If you keep your eyes closed, and I am quieter than the smallest cricket,” asks Mommy, “then how do you know I am near?” Eventually it works for the cub, though that grassland still looks mighty dark and deep. The illustrations, however, are an eyeful: mixed-media confections that catch the smoky-purple hills and tawny grasslands where these tigers roam (though, in reality, most tigers prefer the Asian forest).
A didactic pipe dream. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7641-6587-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Barron's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
Readers are likely to love it to the moon and back.
Little Nutbrown Hare ventures out into the wide world and comes back with a new companion in this sequel to Guess How Much I Love You (1994).
Big Nutbrown Hare is too busy, so after asking permission, Little Nutbrown Hare scampers off over the rolling meadow to play by himself. After discovering that neither his shadow nor his reflection make satisfactory playmates (“You’re only another me!”), Little Nutbrown comes to Cloudy Mountain…and meets “Someone real!” It’s a white bunny who introduces herself as Tipps. But a wonderful round of digging and building and chasing about reaches an unexpected end with a game of hide-and-seek, because both hares hide! After waiting a long time to be found, Little Nutbrown Hare hops on home in disappointment, wondering whether he’ll ever see Tipps again. As it turns out, it doesn’t take long to find out, since she has followed him. “Now, where on earth did she come from?” wonders Big Nutbrown. “Her name is Tipps,” Little Nutbrown proudly replies, “and she’s my friend.” Jeram’s spacious, pale-toned, naturalistic outdoor scenes create a properly idyllic setting for this cozy development in a tender child-caregiver relationship—which hasn’t lost a bit of its appealing intimacy in the more than 25 years since its first appearance. As in the first, Big Nutbrown Hare is ungendered, facilitating pleasingly flexible readings.
Readers are likely to love it to the moon and back. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1747-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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This is a tremendously moving story, but some people will be moved only on the second reading, after they’ve Googled “How to...
A hug shouldn’t require an instruction manual—but some do.
A porcupine can frighten even the largest animal. In this picture book, a bear and a deer, along with a small rabbit, each run away when they hear eight simple words and their name: “I need a hug. Will you cuddle me,…?” As they flee, each utters a definitive refusal that rhymes with their name. The repetitive structure gives Blabey plenty of opportunities for humor, because every animal responds to the question with an outlandish, pop-eyed expression of panic. But the understated moments are even funnier. Each animal takes a moment to think over the request, and the drawings are nuanced enough that readers can see the creatures react with slowly building anxiety or, sometimes, a glassy stare. These silent reaction shots not only show exquisite comic timing, but they make the rhymes in the text feel pleasingly subtle by delaying the final line in each stanza. The story is a sort of fable about tolerance. It turns out that a porcupine can give a perfectly adequate hug when its quills are flat and relaxed, but no one stays around long enough to find out except for an animal that has its own experiences with intolerance: a snake. It’s an apt, touching moral, but the climax may confuse some readers as they try to figure out the precise mechanics of the embrace.
This is a tremendously moving story, but some people will be moved only on the second reading, after they’ve Googled “How to pet a porcupine.” (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-29710-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
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