Graceful and perceptive in both illustration and text, the timeless theme is particularly pertinent today.
A mouse in the forest finds a crown and becomes king (for a bit) in this picture book.
The story opens with a wordless double-page spread—a great way to start a picture book when it works, and this one does. In soft-edged graphite with subtle digital coloring, Seiferling’s opening illustration shows a tricycle pulling a cart full of crowns, some of which are spilling out, instantly creating a magical ambiance. The page turn begins the text. A mouse wakes up hungry and, looking for food, finds a tiny crown. A bear ambles by and asks the mouse, “Are you a king?” The mouse thinks, then answers, “Yes, I am.” A crow, a tortoise, and a fox find the new king food and amuse him with a play. Just when readers think the mouse may be getting a bit full of himself, a snake shows up, also wearing a crown. The animals declare her queen. Then more crowns are found, and in a very funny bit, most of the rest of the animals declare themselves kings or queens. But the bear, unable to find a crown, wanders away disconsolate. The mouse goes to find him, realizing now that there is something much more important than being king. In lovely illustrative symmetry, the story ends perfectly with a wordless illustration.
Graceful and perceptive in both illustration and text, the timeless theme is particularly pertinent today. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-6404-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
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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
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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BOOK REVIEW
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