With its bright, full-page trompe-l’oeil paintings, one cannot fault this rhymed abecedarium for earnestness. Each letter of the alphabet has its list in couplets, and each letter names places, persons, and things American—N is for Norman Rockwell, Native American, NASA—and the accompanying painting illustrates them all in an inventive if rather surreal diorama. A sidebar to each rhyme gives a bit more historical background. While it is not precisely disinformation, some of the facts offered are pretty offhand. For example, the name California comes from the Amazon Queen Califia, who presided over an island of gold; so to say, as the author does, that the name comes from a Spanish story about an island of gold is a little misleading. What is perhaps more troubling is the amount of product placement: Hershey bars, Oreos, Tootsie Rolls, Monopoly, and Holiday Inns are among the items listed, and lovingly delineated, under their proper letters. The images cheerfully combine what’s named without regard for historical time frame, but it is a bit unsettling to see, on the page for P, civil rights hero Rosa Parks with a box of popcorn in her lap, looking out a bus window where both Pike’s Peak and Plymouth rock can be seen. One might have more fun with Barbara Younger’s Purple Mountain Majesties (1998) for Fourth of July storytime. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-58536-015-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Scotton makes a stylish debut with this tale of a sleepless sheep—depicted as a blocky, pop-eyed, very soft-looking woolly with a skinny striped nightcap of unusual length—trying everything, from stripping down to his spotted shorts to counting all six hundred million billion and ten stars, twice, in an effort to doze off. Not even counting sheep . . . well, actually, that does work, once he counts himself. Dawn finds him tucked beneath a rather-too-small quilt while the rest of his flock rises to bathe, brush and riffle through the Daily Bleat. Russell doesn’t have quite the big personality of Ian Falconer’s Olivia, but more sophisticated fans of the precocious piglet will find in this art the same sort of daffy urbanity. Quite a contrast to the usual run of ovine-driven snoozers, like Phyllis Root’s Ten Sleepy Sheep, illustrated by Susan Gaber (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-059848-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
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