Attractive and surprisingly informative, this should join the duo’s Eat Like a Bear (2013) on every preschool and primary...
With bouncy verse and colorful illustrations, an experienced picture-book team introduces a familiar bird.
Focusing on six woodpecker species common in eastern deciduous forests—downy, red-bellied, red-headed and pileated woodpeckers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers and northern flickers—Sayre describes typical behaviors: shredding, carving, drilling, messaging, feeding, cleaning, courting, hiding, nesting, nurturing and storing food. She even mentions their useful seed-enriched droppings. Each page or spread includes a well-rhymed and rhythmic quatrain set on an illustration showing the action described. Repetitive onomatopoeic sounds such as “CHOP, CHIP, CHOP!” and “BONK-BONK-BONK” combine with plentiful alliteration to make the simple verses come alive. Each species is recognizable in Jenkins’ cut-and-torn–paper collages by its head markings (but not so clearly from the striped and spotted bodies). The birds are shown in their usual habitat over four seasons, sometimes up close and sometimes from a middle distance. A particularly appealing image shows a flicker gorging on cherries, its head and upper body stained with the juice. The pictured birds are identified in thumbnail illustrations included in the extensive backmatter for older readers and adults: six pages of description of the woodpecker world which amplify the read-aloud text.
Attractive and surprisingly informative, this should join the duo’s Eat Like a Bear (2013) on every preschool and primary nature shelf. (Informational picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: May 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8842-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Yes, the Pigeon has to go to school, and so do readers, and this book will surely ease the way.
All the typical worries and excuses kids have about school are filtered through Willems’ hysterical, bus-loving Pigeon.
Told mostly in speech balloons, the bird’s monologue will have kids (and their caregivers) in stitches at Pigeon’s excuses. From already knowing everything (except whatever question readers choose to provide in response to “Go ahead—ask me a question. / Any question!”) to fearing learning too much (“My head might pop off”), Pigeon’s imagination has run wild. Readers familiar with Pigeon will recognize the muted, matte backgrounds that show off the bird’s shenanigans so well. As in previous outings, Willems varies the size of the pigeon on the page to help communicate emotion, the bird teeny small on the double-page spread that illustrates the confession that “I’m… / scared.” And Pigeon’s eight-box rant about all the perils of school (“The unknown stresses me out, dude”) is marvelously followed by the realization (complete with lightbulb thought bubble) that school is the place for students to practice, with experts, all those skills they don’t yet have. But it is the ending that is so Willems, so Pigeon, and so perfect. Pigeon’s last question is “Well, HOW am I supposed to get there, anyway!?!” Readers will readily guess both the answer and Pigeon’s reaction.
Yes, the Pigeon has to go to school, and so do readers, and this book will surely ease the way. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: July 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-368-04645-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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