Beautiful—but imbalanced.
A child follows a rabbit and discovers a wooded wonderland.
The opening illustration doesn’t depict the rabbit, but the first-person narrator describes it, saying he is “carrying a sack in his mouth.” The narrator follows the rabbit to “a bare, forgotten patch of land.” Other rabbits appear with their own sacks, from which they take acorns that they bury in the ground. The exquisite watercolors are evocative of Lisbeth Zwerger’s work, though with a naturalist’s attention to detail that also brings to mind Nancy Eckholm Burkert’s style in spreads showing songbirds, squirrels, a moon bear, and then various insects all bringing seeds to the barren land. These gorgeous pictures outshine the labored text, which seems to take a fantastic turn when the narrator falls asleep and awakens to see that a forest has grown up all around. Stunning, wordless spreads follow, depicting fish swimming through the air, the moon bear delicately holding a fork to spear an acorn, and other fantastic sights. A voice from the forest tells the child: “This is how the forest could be in a hundred years.” It turns out that the child’s vision of the forest was a dream, after all; upon truly awaking, the child resolves to make that dream-vision a reality and plants acorns in the ground. The child presents East Asian.
Beautiful—but imbalanced. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-988-8341-64-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: minedition
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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