Breezy, colorful, and fun.
In this Dutch import, Westera, author of the Batchelder Honor book Later, When I’m Big (2023), offers a lighthearted lesson in antonyms.
Sixteen pairs of animal opposites are portrayed in poems titled according to their primary characteristics. Like the titular duo, some pairs intrinsically embody their traits: A butterfly’s “Dazzling” appearance diverges from a moth's “Plain” coloration, which also augments its ability to camouflage itself. A “Patient” spider awaiting prey in its web contrasts with a “Restless” blowfly as it debates where to land. A snake of unspecified species garners a “Dangerous” designation, while a facing earthworm, similarly sized in the accompanying illustration, is “Harmless.” “No need to be afraid of me. / I wouldn’t hurt a fly. / I don’t eat bugs / or caterpillars. / Just autumn leaves.” A preening turkey is “Fancy” while a self-effacing chicken is “Everyday.” Often, the contravening traits are anthropomorphized: The nonmigratory house sparrow is “Contented,” while the swallow’s migratory behavior earns it an “Adventurous” label. Westera even bucks convention by assigning a pig the quality of “Tidy,” reserving “Messy” for the warthog. The short, free-verse poems rely on first-person, matter-of-fact personification, dabbling in qualities such as braggadocio and self-effacement. Van Hout’s cheerful illustrations (reminiscent of Douglas Florian’s) alternate full-bleed double spreads with separately composed facing pictures, one with a colored background and the other set against white space. Her palette emphasizes butternut-gold and blue-green hues. A well-designed layout presents the facing poems with respective left- and right-justified margins.
Breezy, colorful, and fun. (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780802856357
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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