Nature and art intertwine in this multifaceted homage to the beauty and creativity that surrounds and resides within each of...
A child narrator, created from cut paper and paints, introduces readers to the beauty of life’s “forest,” both figuratively and literally.
From the balcony of a high-rise apartment, the child can see the top of the urban forest nearby. However, there’s also an indoor forest, one made of the child’s own artwork depicting all the wondrous things found in nature. A double-page spread that reads “My forest is crispy…and soft” depicts the child scuffing through fall leaves and gazing at a mossy spot in borderless horizontal panels on verso, while on recto those leaves are taped into collage images and replicated with sponge paints in corresponding panels. The child’s forest has many facets: It is “tall,” it is “short”; it is “fluffy…prickly [and] rough.” Every page introduces many characteristics that define the child’s world, and each is paired with both encounters with flora and fauna and creative use of varying art media to capture their essence. Colorful multimedia spreads convey the joy of discovery and model the different ways art can be used to express colors, textures, and feelings. Simple text offering a plethora of adjectives, some surprising (“dangling yellow, tiptoe gray, peekaboo purple”), and illustrations that are simultaneously complex and accessible make this a book to enjoy on many levels. The child has beige skin and straight, black hair, as do mom and a baby sibling.
Nature and art intertwine in this multifaceted homage to the beauty and creativity that surrounds and resides within each of us . (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77138-930-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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