An ingenious, if unevenly successful, showpiece.
Twenty-six pop-up letters—both resolutely minimalist and a tour de force of paper design.
Gathered into a small, square volume, the pop-up letters are all capitals and take up one spread each with printed capital and lowercase characters in the lower corner. The rectos are all white, the versos a solid color that is often echoed in the architectural counters or eyes in the central figures. Sometimes, though, Hawcock only suggests his letterforms with cut edges and negative spaces; a technique that works nicely for “C” and “E” but leaves “K” just a set of abstract angles and “R” with a solid top and no distinct lower leg. He also makes inventive use of origami folds—earning style points with reverse-folded colored counters for “B” and “O,” for instance, and crafting “X” simply from the unmarked top ridges of a water bomb base. Readers may be drawn to this as a sometimes-challenging exercise in letter recognition, but it also provides food for thought about ways in which artists can get away from drawn lines and use space, straight or curved edges, and color to create a broad range of forms.
An ingenious, if unevenly successful, showpiece. (Pop-up alphabet book. 3 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-85707-809-1
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Tango Books
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
A bit predictable but pleasantly illustrated.
Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault’s classic alphabet book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989) gets the Halloween treatment.
Chung follows the original formula to the letter. In alphabetical order, each letter climbs to the top of a tree. They are knocked back to the ground in a jumble before climbing up in sequence again. In homage to the spooky holiday theme, they scale a “creaky old tree,” and a ghostly jump scare causes the pileup. The chunky, colorful art is instantly recognizable. The charmingly costumed letters (“H swings a tail. / I wears a patch. J and K don / bows that don’t match”) are set against a dark backdrop, framed by pages with orange or purple borders. The spreads feature spiderwebs and jack-o’-lanterns. The familiar rhyme cadence is marred by the occasional clunky or awkward phrase; in particular, the adapted refrain of “Chicka chicka tricka treat” offers tongue-twisting fun, but it’s repeatedly followed by the disappointing half-rhyme “Everybody sneaka sneak.” Even this odd construction feels shoehorned into place, since “sneaking” makes little sense when every character in the book is climbing together. The final line of the book ends on a more satisfying note, with “Everybody—time to eat!”
A bit predictable but pleasantly illustrated. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781665954785
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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