A deceptively simple exploration of opposites, illustrated by the relationship between a boy and his dog, Lucky. Milgrim’s (Patrick’s Dinosaurs on the Internet, 1999, etc.) cartoony illustrations depict a Charlie Brown–like round-headed boy and his genial brown dog as they demonstrate a series of opposites on succeeding double-page spreads. “Lucky gives / Lucky gets [kisses]” “Lucky’s sad / Lucky’s happy.” The two characters are surrounded by white space, with only the most necessary contextualizing details added. In the “Lucky’s hungry” picture, for instance, the viewer sees a table with a piece of cake and an excited Lucky; but when “Lucky’s full,” the dog is no longer to be seen, and the boy is left holding a carton of milk, his cake reduced to six crumbs. The “Lucky’s loud / Lucky’s quiet” spread features two nearly identical pictures of the boy doing his homework and Lucky barking (the dog’s mouth is open and little “bark” lines emerge, indicating noise)—the only difference is that in the “quiet” illustration, the boy is wearing earmuffs. Definitely not an introductory concept book, this offering clearly depends on a fairly sophisticated ability to decode the conventions of illustration. It is, however, a splendid primer in the art of visual irony, and its sly humor will have young readers chortling. It is also, of course, a love story; that the dog is not the only member of the pair who is lucky is amply illustrated on the endpapers, which reveal Lucky and his friend waking up together and then settling down for sleep in a happy heap on the boy’s bed. A winner, and not just for dog lovers. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-84253-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Anne Schwartz/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
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
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BOOK REVIEW
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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