One sure gift of the Christmas season is the annual ritual of picture books in which grandmother takes granddaughter to the ballet for the first time to see The Nutcracker. In this iteration, Grandmother and her fellow theater-goers are decidedly upper-crust snooty and almost entirely white. The ballet is unnamed but is almost certainly The Nutcracker, as Christmas trees comprise the scenery and one scene depicts the fight between the toy soldiers and the Mouse King. Oddly, there are few children in the audience and very few dancers on the stage. The story is told mostly through short sentences: “Crisp air. Breath clouds. / Precious ticket. Eager crowds.” First-time author Caswell would do well to rethink her sentence structure, as the clipped couplets quickly grow old. Matthews’s full-page color illustrations are lackluster and uninspired, though vignettes illustrating various balletic maneuvers do educate. In particular, the image of a yawning Grandma at the end may discourage rather than encourage excitement in little ones. Even a ballet warhorse—perhaps especially this one—deserves better treatment. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4231-1353-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2009
A brother and sister participate in their Tae Kwon Do class in a most welcome addition to the Step into Reading series. This level-one title sports predominantly one-syllable, short vowel words in two-to-four-word sentences. Spirited images and mainly well-chosen action words in rhyme will hook little boys: “We count. We yell. We all kick well.” But the multicultural, coed students portrayed here, and the apparent accuracy of belt colors and class content, widen the applications. Bonita’s illustrations depict cheerful, cartoonish kids with shiny button noses, impossibly pudgy feet and thighs like enrobed sausages, but the sparring, jabbing and block-busting yield a sure hit. Parents, teachers and librarians desperate for first-level, child-appealing readers will cheer out loud—and quite possibly execute a few joyous spinning kicks of their own—as they snap this one up. (Easy reader. 3-5)
Pub Date: April 25, 2006
ISBN: 0-375-83448-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2006
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat.
Dinos that love to move and groove get children counting from one to 10—and perhaps moving to the beat.
Beginning with a solo bop by a female dino (she has eyelashes, doncha know), the dinosaur dance party begins. Each turn of the page adds another dino and a change in the dance genre: waltz, country line dancing, disco, limbo, square dancing, hip-hop, and swing. As the party would be incomplete without the moonwalk, the T. Rex does the honors…and once they are beyond their initial panic at his appearance, the onlookers cheer wildly. The repeated refrain on each spread allows for audience participation, though it doesn’t easily trip off the tongue: “They hear a swish. / What’s this? / One more? / One more dino on the floor.” Some of the prehistoric beasts are easily identifiable—pterodactyl, ankylosaurus, triceratops—but others will be known only to the dino-obsessed; none are identified, other than T-Rex. Packed spreads filled with psychedelically colored dinos sporting blocks of color, stripes, or polka dots (and infectious looks of joy) make identification even more difficult, to say nothing of counting them. Indeed, this fails as a counting primer: there are extra animals (and sometimes a grumpy T-Rex) in the backgrounds, and the next dino to join the party pokes its head into the frame on the page before. Besides all that, most kids won’t get the dance references.
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1598-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
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