It misses the mark—skip it.
From chunk of ice to evaporation and back again, a young ice cube decides to break away from his ice tray to see what’s beyond his destined outcome.
Readers meet Ice Boy, who leads an ordinary life in the freezer with his siblings, parents, and other ice cubes. The omniscient narrator also explains “Once in a while, someone was taken. Usually for a person’s drink.” Getting “chosen” is “the best thing that could happen to an ice cube.” Opting instead for an extraordinary path, Ice Boy proceeds to sneak out of the freezer, where he embarks on a water-cycle escapade: he wanders to the salty beach, where his “edges…blur,” and he becomes Water Boy; he is then washed in with the tide, plays with seashore wildlife, soaks into a beach towel, begins to steam, and becomes Vapor Boy. Now a cloud and light as air, he rises higher, gets denser, and runs into a thunderstorm, until he freezes and gravity pulls him down to be Ice Boy once more. An allegory for breaking away from the mold, the story doubles as a light lesson on the water cycle. While a mostly blue-gray watercolor palette appropriately fills the spreads, the nuances in the book may fail to charm readers. Despite cheeky dialogue-bubble interjections, Ice Boy may be just too twee to connect with readers, leaving them uninterested in this well-meaning adventure.
It misses the mark—skip it. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8203-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender...
A polar-bear parent speaks poetically of love for a child.
A genderless adult and cub travel through the landscapes of an arctic year. Each of the softly rendered double-page paintings has a very different feel and color palette as the pair go through the seasons, walking through wintry ice and snow and green summer meadows, cavorting in the blue ocean, watching whales, and playing beside musk oxen. The rhymes of the four-line stanzas are not forced, as is the case too often in picture books of this type: “When cold, winter winds / blow the leaves far and wide, / You’ll cross the great icebergs / with me by your side.” On a dark, snowy night, the loving parent says: “But for now, cuddle close / while the stars softly shine. // I’ll always be yours, / and you’ll always be mine.” As the last illustration shows the pair curled up for sleep, young listeners will be lulled to sweet dreams by the calm tenor of the pictures and the words. While far from original, this timeless theme is always in demand, and the combination of delightful illustrations and poetry that scans well make this a good choice for early-childhood classrooms, public libraries, and one-on-one home read-alouds.
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender restrictions. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68010-070-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
A good bet for the youngest bird-watchers.
Echoing the meter of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” Ward uses catchy original rhymes to describe the variety of nests birds create.
Each sweet stanza is complemented by a factual, engaging description of the nesting habits of each bird. Some of the notes are intriguing, such as the fact that the hummingbird uses flexible spider web to construct its cup-shaped nest so the nest will stretch as the chicks grow. An especially endearing nesting behavior is that of the emperor penguin, who, with unbelievable patience, incubates the egg between his tummy and his feet for up to 60 days. The author clearly feels a mission to impart her extensive knowledge of birds and bird behavior to the very young, and she’s found an appealing and attractive way to accomplish this. The simple rhymes on the left page of each spread, written from the young bird’s perspective, will appeal to younger children, and the notes on the right-hand page of each spread provide more complex factual information that will help parents answer further questions and satisfy the curiosity of older children. Jenkins’ accomplished collage illustrations of common bird species—woodpecker, hummingbird, cowbird, emperor penguin, eagle, owl, wren—as well as exotics, such as flamingoes and hornbills, are characteristically naturalistic and accurate in detail.
A good bet for the youngest bird-watchers. (author’s note, further resources) (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-2116-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
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