The spirit of Christmas is examined through the eyes of each member of a family, including pets, the table, even the house itself. An engaging idea, but the narrative design behind these 13 poems is indiscernible. Switch their order around and not much is lost. Therefore, each poem carries the burden of being a complete emotional experience unto itself. Some are strong enough to carry the weight (one of the best, almost like a haiku, relates the baby's simple wonder), but too often they fall short. We hear clearly the house's gathering spirit, the father's worry, and the grandfather's nostalgia, but the other siblings and animals are not convincing. Turner (A Moon for Seasons, p. 311, etc.) is less successful with this rather static volume than she has been in the past. The illustrations, though technically proficient, are strictly standard fare. Such a promising concept requires a visual and verbal feast- -like a roast turkey dinner with all the trimmings—but all we get for this Christmas is white bread and thin gravy. (Poetry/Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-023429-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
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
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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