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HERE COMES VALENTINE CAT

Name: HERE COMES VALENTINE CAT
Author: Deborah Underwood
ISBN: 978-0-525-42915-9

From the Here Comes… series

by Deborah Underwood ; illustrated by Claudia Rueda ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 22, 2015

Cat hasn’t lost his ability to charm readers, if for no other reason than children are so able to see themselves in him.

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Underwood’s endearing, voiceless cat is back, this time getting a lesson in Valentine’s Day tact.

Using signs and props to communicate with an off-page, unseen, seemingly adult figure, Cat first establishes that he doesn’t like Valentine’s Day. It gradually comes out that, other than his stuffed squid, he has no friends. Just then, the conversation is interrupted by a bone, thrown over the fence by Cat’s new neighbor, Dog, and it’s not the first bone he’s thrown, either. Cat, being Cat, jumps to conclusions, especially after a thrown ball clobbers him. “Cat, what are you up to? // You are going to give Dog a valentine? // Oh, dear.” That about sums it up. Needless to say, the Roses are Red… poems Cat comes up with are not very tactful. But his construction of a rocket (to send Dog to the moon, of course) is interrupted by a valentine that flutters down and lands on its tip. Perhaps Dog isn’t the mean, awful neighbor Cat took him to be? Maybe he’s even a potential friend. Rueda masterfully uses white space and Cat’s facial expressions and body language to play up the emotions, exploiting the expansive page count for beautifully pitched comic timing.

Cat hasn’t lost his ability to charm readers, if for no other reason than children are so able to see themselves in him. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: Dec. 22, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-525-42915-9

Page Count: 88

Publisher: Dial Books

Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MAN WHO DIDN'T LIKE ANIMALS
by Deborah Underwood ; illustrated by LeUyen Pham

- BOOK REVIEW
WALTER HAD A BEST FRIEND
by Deborah Underwood ; illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier

- BOOK REVIEW
JO BRIGHT AND THE SEVEN BOTS
by Deborah Underwood ; illustrated by Meg Hunt

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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LOVE FROM THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2015

Safe to creep on by.

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Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.

In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.

Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)