A low-key love story about growing and outgrowing.
As a girl gets bigger and older, her imaginary friend…well, gets bigger.
Spotting Scratch—“pale and luminous, with shifting rainbow colors, like oil on water”—crawling from an egg carton at the store, little Ellie makes a home for him in her bedroom dollhouse. When she’s old enough for preschool, she brings him along to be admired by her classmates (grown-ups can’t see him), and he comes along to the movies when her dad visits on weekends too. But when she turns 5 and goes to kindergarten, Scratch stays home, and as years go by he gets harder and harder to see. Finally, when Ellie turns 13, Scratch slips away…to be found wandering the streets by little Sam. In Graham’s typically restrained, softly hued cartoon scenes, Scratch grows from mouse- to bus-size but always somehow fits, even in Ellie’s cozy bedroom, without crowding. Along with Graham’s calm, abstracted expressions and the occasional piercing, tattoo, or punk hairdo, the dot-eyed human figures in street and classroom settings display subtle but visible differences in racial presentation: Ellie and her parents are White; Sam and his family are people of color. Though the story bears obvious similarities to “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” its emotions are more nuanced and contemplative than that hoary classic’s. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11.5-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at 75% of actual size.)
A low-key love story about growing and outgrowing. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1113-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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