All Bookish Cat Devotees Enjoy!
An alphabetical celebration of the venerable bookstore cat.
Inspired by the Victorian party game “The Minister’s Cat,” in which players take turns describing the minister’s cat with adjectives all in alphabetical order, Busby describes a slightly chubby marmalade cat in a bow tie who lives, of course, in a bookstore. “The bookstore cat is an Adorable cat. / The bookstore cat is a Bossy / (very bossy) / but Cuddly cat.” He is also darting, excited, friendly, and gorgeous (but humble). In Santoso’s illustrations—one or more for each letter—the bookstore pussycat displays the cited characteristic, often interacting with the shop owner and customers. As a jealous cat, he glares angrily out the store window as the owner pets a puppy. As a mysterious cat, he hides in the shadows of the mystery section. He crouches, waiting, before pouncing on a Xenops (somehow this Central American bird has made it to this quaint, diverse North American commercial district). “By closing time, he’s a Zigzag cat,” racing back and forth across the store…only to end up in his loving owner’s arms. Whether they know their ABCs or not, both cat and book lovers will appreciate this and may take up the Victorian game. Santoso’s delicate illustrations look like colored pencil and are a perfect match for the playful text. The shop owner has beige skin and dark, curly hair.
All Bookish Cat Devotees Enjoy! (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-289434-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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