Ideal for starting discussions about promises and expressing motherly love.
A wise mother bear teaches her cub all about promises as they enjoy a day spent together.
When Baby Bear asks Mother Bear to sing to him, she tells him, “Later….I promise!” This leads him to ask what “promise” means. In Mother Bear’s voice, McPhail proves he is a genius in communicating at a child’s level in simple language: “A promise is when you say you will do something…and then do your very best to do it.” But Baby Bear isn’t finished with his questions. What if you don’t do it? “Then it becomes a broken promise.” Can it be fixed? “Not easily….That’s why it’s so important to keep it.” From this conversation, Baby Bear realizes that when he says he will play with a friend, he needs to follow through or it may hurt his friend’s feelings. And when Baby Bear asks what else his mother promises him, she tells him of all the things a mother gives to and hopes for her child: good food to eat, time spent together, and especially her love, forever and always. McPhail’s full-bleed spreads are done in pen and ink and watercolor in blues, greens, and browns and show the gentle love of the bears for each other and also their enjoyment of the natural world: waterfall, river, meadow, forest, apple orchard.
Ideal for starting discussions about promises and expressing motherly love. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-29787-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
A sweet, tender and charming experience to read aloud or together.
A clueless duckling tries to make a new friend.
He is confused by this peculiar-looking duck, who has a long tail, doesn’t waddle and likes to be alone. No matter how explicitly the creature denies he is a duck and announces that he is a cat, the duckling refuses to acknowledge the facts. When this creature expresses complete lack of interest in playing puddle stomp, the little ducking goes off and plays on his own. But the cat is not without remorse for rejecting an offered friendship. Of course it all ends happily, with the two new friends enjoying each other’s company. Bramsen employs brief sentences and the simplest of rhymes to tell this slight tale. The two heroes are meticulously drawn with endearing, expressive faces and body language, and their feathers and fur appear textured and touchable. Even the detailed tree bark and grass seem three-dimensional. There are single- and double-page spreads, panels surrounded by white space and circular and oval frames, all in a variety of eye-pleasing juxtapositions. While the initial appeal is solidly visual, young readers will get the gentle message that friendship is not something to take for granted but is to be embraced with open arms—or paws and webbed feet.
A sweet, tender and charming experience to read aloud or together. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-86990-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
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