It’s great to be able to count on something; readers can count on both the sun and Graham.
The sun takes readers on a world tour as it makes its way to each new dawning horizon.
It is dark when Coco crawls into bed for the night, but the sun is getting busy elsewhere. It greets polar bear cubs and a fishing vessel in the cold northern waters. It reflects off a whale’s eye and the bell of the paperboy’s bicycle. It lights the way through a Siberian forest, heats a yurt, crawls down an alley in China, “and waited patiently outside an old lady’s window to be let in.” The sun sparks a rainbow and dazzles a puddle. Then, sure as the world turns, it crawls in through Coco’s window, joins the family for breakfast, and after “such a dash, the sun had time on its hands. So did Coco! So did Coco’s friends!” Graham brings a little sentiment to the procession but only enough to light sympathy for all the characters on parade. The drawings are deftly unfussy, with an easy command of the watercolors. Their deliberate pacing recalls Mitsumasa Anno, and in their grand compass they are like a big, Whitmanesque hug. The story ends with a bird’s-eye view of a factory town, a shaft of sunlight slicing down to Coco’s yard and a new snow having fallen, with hoses and lawn mowers caught by surprise.
It’s great to be able to count on something; readers can count on both the sun and Graham. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8109-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome addition to autumnal storytelling—and to tales of traditional enemies overcoming their history.
Ferry and the Fans portray a popular seasonal character’s unlikely friendship.
Initially, the protagonist is shown in his solitary world: “Scarecrow stands alone and scares / the fox and deer, / the mice and crows. / It’s all he does. It’s all he knows.” His presence is effective; the animals stay outside the fenced-in fields, but the omniscient narrator laments the character’s lack of friends or places to go. Everything changes when a baby crow falls nearby. Breaking his pole so he can bend, the scarecrow picks it up, placing the creature in the bib of his overalls while singing a lullaby. Both abandon natural tendencies until the crow learns to fly—and thus departs. The aabb rhyme scheme flows reasonably well, propelling the narrative through fall, winter, and spring, when the mature crow returns with a mate to build a nest in the overalls bib that once was his home. The Fan brothers capture the emotional tenor of the seasons and the main character in their panoramic pencil, ballpoint, and digital compositions. Particularly poignant is the close-up of the scarecrow’s burlap face, his stitched mouth and leaf-rimmed head conveying such sadness after his companion goes. Some adults may wonder why the scarecrow seems to have only partial agency, but children will be tuned into the problem, gratified by the resolution.
A welcome addition to autumnal storytelling—and to tales of traditional enemies overcoming their history. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-247576-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
