Buckle up for this intrepid crawler’s quest—a rhyming ride with a racing twist.
An infant’s crawl across the living room turns into a fantastical, perspective-shifting racing adventure.
A red-helmeted baby races across a living room that’s been recast as an epic racetrack, with furniture and other ordinary objects becoming forests, mountains, and waterways. Encouraged by an older sibling (“Baby, start your engine…crawl!”), the determined infant navigates obstacles, makes pit stops, and presses onward to the finish line. Tobin Fine’s racing terminology (straightaway, stalls) creates an effective sports-announcer rhythm that propels the narrative forward, while the consistent rhyming text keeps the momentum going throughout. Fabiani’s child-friendly mixed-media illustrations skillfully depict the dual perspective—both the actual living room and the way the baby sees it. The compositions play with scale, transforming a parquet floor and fluffy carpeting into vast terrains from Baby’s viewpoint. In one particularly effective spread, Fabiani frames Baby’s vision through a helmet-shaped portal with dashboardlike indicators below, cleverly simulating how the world might appear through a racer’s visor, reinforcing Baby’s imaginative point of view while maintaining the book’s racing theme. Worth noting is the text’s consistent use of they/them pronouns for the baby and nongendered descriptions of family members (“Parked right on their parent’s knee, / Baby’s where they’re meant to be”). Characters are pale-skinned.
Buckle up for this intrepid crawler’s quest—a rhyming ride with a racing twist. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780593904992
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Sure to assuage the fears of all astronauts bound for similar missions.
A genius way to ease kids into the new adventure that is kindergarten.
In an imaginative ruse that’s maintained through the whole book, a young astronaut prepares for his mission to Planet Kindergarten. On liftoff day (a space shuttle–themed calendar counts down the days; a stopwatch, the minutes), the small family boards their rocket ship (depicted in the illustrations as the family car), and “the boosters fire.” They orbit base camp while looking for a docking place. “I am assigned to my commander, capsule, and crewmates.” Though he’s afraid, he stands tall and is brave (not just once, either—the escape hatch beckons, but NASA’s saying gets him through: “FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION”). Parents will certainly chuckle along with this one, but kindergarten teachers’ stomach muscles will ache: “[G]ravity works differently here. We have to try hard to stay in our seats. And our hands go up a lot.” Prigmore’s digital illustrations are the perfect complement to the tongue-in-cheek text. Bold colors, sharp lines and a retro-space style play up the theme. The intrepid explorer’s crewmates are a motley assortment of “aliens”—among them are a kid in a hoodie with the laces pulled so tight that only a nose and mouth are visible; a plump kid with a bluish cast to his skin; and a pinkish girl with a toothpick-thin neck and huge bug eyes.
Sure to assuage the fears of all astronauts bound for similar missions. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: May 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4521-1893-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
Powered by whimsy and nostalgia, a doggone adorable tale of superheroes transforming the world for the better.
Can flying puppies, fueled by people’s hugs, save the world from gloom?
Light-skinned Snarly McBummerpants is busy sending out Mopey Smokes (evil-looking dark brown clouds) from his volcano on the Island of Woe to create a sad state of affairs. But the caped puppies, each equipped with a rocket and hailing from “the outer reaches of NOT-FROM-HERE,” use their abilities to conquer the morose McBummerpants and bring happiness back to everyone’s lives. The meticulously detailed illustrations carry the story, dark colors turning to rainbow hues and frowns turning to smiles. From Big Brad to Tiny Brad, the smallest, most powerful puppy, who “[licks] a kiss right on the tip of Snarly McBummerpants’s nose,” these absolutely endearing pooches elicit a universal “AWWWWWWWWWW!” from all who encounter them. Joyce’s witty illustrations depict diverse children and adults who appear to hail from different decades. Two teenagers wear the bobby socks and saddle shoes of the 1940s and ’50s and sit atop a retro soda cooler. Other kids ride the skateboards of a later era. Laurel and Hardy, classic movie performers who may need introduction, are amusingly pictured as bullies turned florists (a little odd, since only Hardy bullied Laurel). Even McBummerpants seems reminiscent of an old-time movie villain. The text is less inventive than the pictures, but the message of good over evil is always timely.
Powered by whimsy and nostalgia, a doggone adorable tale of superheroes transforming the world for the better. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781665961332
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
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