Too didactic to be much fun but certainly pretty.
Find out why mermaids have tails.
A dark-skinned boy named Theodore rows his boat around a pastel-colored world filled with anthropomorphic sea creatures. He brings a hefty selection of fish back to his skylit home so he can watch “the way their scales shimmer…in the sunlight like jewels.” Bright flecks in the illustrations provide a dreamy, enchanted quality—the book’s biggest strength. When Theodore captures a mermaid—a tiny humanoid creatures with legs, surrounded by a clear shell—a booming voice tells him that “she belongs to the ocean,” but he ignores it. Calling the mermaid Oceanne, he drops her into a suffocating, filterless fishbowl. As the mermaid sickens and her shell breaks, scenes darken and lose saturation. If an omnipotent voice hadn't already broadcast the story’s moral, Theodore and readers might now put it together themselves in a satisfying exercise of agency and meaning-making. Instead, the loud voice repeatedly insists that Oceanne “belongs to the ocean” until Theodore finally brings her back. The sea is subdued and empty, but eventually fish after fish reappears, each giving Oceanne a sparkly scale until she revives and grows a tail. “All mermaids have tails,” the narrative declares, “to remind us of something very important”: that animals belong in the wild. While it’s an important lesson, the preachy narrative talks down to readers rather than engaging them.
Too didactic to be much fun but certainly pretty. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9780711295315
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
Still, preschoolers will likely savor this mouthwatering treatment of a subject that looms large in many early school...
The familiar theme of the challenges facing a new kid in town is given an original treatment by photographer Border in this book of photos of three-dimensional objects in a simple modeled landscape.
Peanut Butter is represented by a slice of white bread spread with the popular condiment. The other characters in the story—a hamburger with a pair of hot dogs in tow, a bowl of alphabet soup, a meatball jumping a rope of spaghetti, a carton of French fries and a pink cupcake—are represented by skillfully crafted models of these foods, anthropomorphized using simple wire construction. Rejected by each character in turn in his search for playmates, Peanut Butter discovers in the end that Jelly is his true match (not Cupcake, as the title suggests), perhaps because she is the only one who looks like him, being a slice of white bread spread with jelly. The friendly foods end up happily playing soccer together. Some parents may have trouble with the unabashedly happy depiction of carbs and American junk food (no carrots or celery sticks in this landscape), and others may find themselves troubled by the implication that friendship across difference is impossible.
Still, preschoolers will likely savor this mouthwatering treatment of a subject that looms large in many early school experiences. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: July 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-16773-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
A wandering effort, happy but pointless.
The perfect book for kids who love dragons and mild tacos.
Rubin’s story starts with an incantatory edge: “Hey, kid! Did you know that dragons love tacos? They love beef tacos and chicken tacos. They love really big gigantic tacos and tiny little baby tacos as well.” The playing field is set: dragons, tacos. As a pairing, they are fairly silly, and when the kicker comes in—that dragons hate spicy salsa, which ignites their inner fireworks—the silliness is sillier still. Second nature, after all, is for dragons to blow flames out their noses. So when the kid throws a taco party for the dragons, it seems a weak device that the clearly labeled “totally mild” salsa comes with spicy jalapenos in the fine print, prompting the dragons to burn down the house, resulting in a barn-raising at which more tacos are served. Harmless, but if there is a parable hidden in the dragon-taco tale, it is hidden in the unlit deep, and as a measure of lunacy, bridled or unbridled, it doesn’t make the leap into the outer reaches of imagination. Salmieri’s artwork is fitting, with a crabbed, ethereal line work reminiscent of Peter Sís, but the story does not offer it enough range.
A wandering effort, happy but pointless. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3680-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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