An amusing and lighthearted introduction to metafiction.
Three bears host an unexpected visitor with surprising results.
“Mama was serving porridge,” recounts the youngest of the three bears about the arrival of a stranger at the door. The small but stout figure, covered head to knees in a bright red hoodie, is “Little Red from the book next door.” Little Red explains that there’s a wolf, “and he wants to eat me.” Though Papa and Mama are dubious about letting her stay (“Not sure that’s how the story goes,” they muse), Little Red consumes a bowl of porridge, recounts her tale, and spends the night. But when the wolf shows up, all four flee to a different neighboring book, where three pigs look alarmed. Poor Wolf. It’s not a choice role, being the Big Bad Wolf, and tears ensue. The empathetic narrator produces a few bowls of just-right porridge (recipe included) to soothe Wolf’s feelings. Rueda’s bears are large, light-brown furred, and rounded with bemused expressions. Little Red has white skin, and the wolf has light-brown fur and a friendly, canine look. Rueda’s punchy, economical narrative and the clear typeface put this within reach of new readers. The gentle twist and metafictive conceit will serve as a conversation starter and may inspire other sendups and blendings of nursery plotlines and characters. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An amusing and lighthearted introduction to metafiction. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7031-2
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color.
Duncan wants to draw, but instead of crayons, he finds a stack of letters listing the crayons’ demands in this humorous tale.
Red is overworked, laboring even on holidays. Gray is exhausted from coloring expansive spaces (elephants, rhinos and whales). Black wants to be considered a color-in color, and Peach? He’s naked without his wrapper! This anthropomorphized lot amicably requests workplace changes in hand-lettered writing, explaining their work stoppage to a surprised Duncan. Some are tired, others underutilized, while a few want official titles. With a little creativity and a lot of color, Duncan saves the day. Jeffers delivers energetic and playful illustrations, done in pencil, paint and crayon. The drawings are loose and lively, and with few lines, he makes his characters effectively emote. Clever spreads, such as Duncan’s “white cat in the snow” perfectly capture the crayons’ conundrum, and photographic representations of both the letters and coloring pages offer another layer of texture, lending to the tale’s overall believability.
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-25537-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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