Rainy days bring all sorts of pleasures; reading this book is just one of them.
Rain, rain, don’t go away!
Anyone seeking a refreshing spin on rainy-day books will find it here. This delightful picture book is awash in treats for readers’/listeners’ ears and eyes, with bouncy, lively, rhythmic verses that make clever use of assonance and consonance, featuring, as examples of the latter, many apt, satisfying S sounds, so readers/listeners can “hear” soft, shushing sounds of raindrops pattering on various surfaces. The artwork suits the book’s message, with pages splashed with lovely, lively, textured illustrations created with paper collage, textiles, and embroidery silk. In addition, this charmer will help develop vocabulary, as rain is described in different ways, e.g., drizzling, freezing, drumming, misty, and sprinkling. The book also points out how rain affects nature—by forming puddles, mud, and streams; arousing snails and worms; watering trees and flowers; and “paint[ing] a work of art” in the sky. Grown-ups sharing this book with children will do well to encourage them to suggest other descriptive terms for rain and the natural changes it can bring about. Rainy days are shown in a variety of settings; characters, all of them children decked out in brightly hued raingear and actively engaging in numerous rainy-day activities (save for the few portrayed indoors), are racially diverse. Endpapers feature assorted vibrantly colored umbrellas. The last page includes several rain- and water-themed experiments and activities. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Rainy days bring all sorts of pleasures; reading this book is just one of them. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-77278-246-2
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Pajama Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
While there are many rhyming truck books out there, this stands out for being a collection of poems.
Rhyming poems introduce children to anthropomorphized trucks of all sorts, as well as the jobs that they do.
Adorable multiethnic children are the drivers of these 16 trucks—from construction equipment to city trucks, rescue vehicles and a semi—easily standing in for readers, a point made very clear on the final spread. Varying rhyme schemes and poem lengths help keep readers’ attention. For the most part, the rhymes and rhythms work, as in this, from “Cement Mixer”: “No time to wait; / he can’t sit still. / He has to beg your pardon. / For if he dawdles on the way, / his slushy load will harden.” Slonim’s trucks each sport an expressive pair of eyes, but the anthropomorphism stops there, at least in the pictures—Vestergaard sometimes takes it too far, as in “Bulldozer”: “He’s not a bully, either, / although he’s big and tough. / He waits his turn, plays well with friends, / and pushes just enough.” A few trucks’ jobs get short shrift, to mixed effect: “Skid-Steer Loader” focuses on how this truck moves without the typical steering wheel, but “Semi” runs with a royalty analogy and fails to truly impart any knowledge. The acrylic-and-charcoal artwork, set against white backgrounds, keeps the focus on the trucks and the jobs they are doing.
While there are many rhyming truck books out there, this stands out for being a collection of poems. (Picture book/poetry. 3-6)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5078-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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