This metaphor for death is just too metaphorical to succeed.
A brightly colored blob arrives in Flatland, makes relationships and builds a community, then leaves.
At the beginning of the story, Owuza is just a collection of concentric, digitally collaged, uneven circles—“no more than a speck.” He develops what look to be eyes, hair and a body, and he carries his heart in his outstretched hand. He finds friends in Flatland; they share stories and songs, create “beautiful things,” help and heal. Then one day, Owuza is gone from Flatland. The Flatlanders look for him but do not find him—until they reach out to one another, and “there, in the center of them all, was Owuza. In all that they shared, he was with them always.” Apparently written in response to the death of his daughter, Sayre’s tale strives to be elemental but ends up simply oblique. It never leaves the mythic plane it begins on, keeping readers at a distance. Children are unlikely to understand what’s going on with either Owuza’s departure or his “reappearance” among the Flatlanders. Emberley’s illustrations pop, placing rough-edged, circular yellow, turquoise, lime-green and fuchsia shapes against a terra-cotta background; in the reiteration of concentric shapes and dots, her designs echo Aboriginal art. In this way, they are an apt emotional and conceptual complement to the text, but they do little to illuminate it for young readers.
This metaphor for death is just too metaphorical to succeed. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-99129-350-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Two Little Birds
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
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
Sweet but misleading.
A plucky child becomes a space traveler.
Arceneaux was the first pediatric cancer survivor and the first with a prosthetic body part to become an astronaut, part of the first all-civilian space mission in 2021. The author, who in 2022 published the adult memoir Wild Ride and its 2023 adaptation for middle-grade readers, here shares her story with an even younger audience. Told in the third person, the narrative emphasizes the bravery she summoned as she coped with a cancer that left her with a prosthetic leg bone and knee (hinted at with an incision line in one illustration) and went on to become a space traveler. Curiously, Hayley and her astronaut colleagues are portrayed as children. They play with a “stuffed toy alien,” and in an imagined episode, Hayley ventures outside the spacecraft to perform a repair. Accompanied by softly hued illustrations with character designs that recall Precious Moments figurines, the narrative emphasizes familiar details of space travel that will appeal to children; both their bodies and their food float in zero gravity. The mission splashes down safely, and Hayley rushes to hug her mom. Though Arceneaux was the youngest astronaut to have orbited the Earth, she was an adult when she did so. The odd choice to depict her as a child reduces her compelling story to a fantasy. Arceneaux is white; other characters are diverse.
Sweet but misleading. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593443903
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Convergent
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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