Pure commercialized product, offering barely a hint of any literary, dramatic, musical or emotional experience and stocked...
The handful of coloring pages and puzzles supplementing the stills that serve for illustrations and minor interactive features serve as poor substitutes for the original film's swinging (if period, now) songs and lively voice-over performances.
Read optionally in cultured British accents by a single narrator over a background of generic light jazz, the tale does retrace the movie's overall course—though so sketchily that none of the cats, from Duchess and her three kittens to their rescuer O'Malley and his raffish buddies, have a chance to establish much individuality. Furthermore, it's all paced...so...deliberately that many readers will inadvertently swipe ahead and so miss some delayed pans and passages of text. Along with an abbreviated piano keyboard featuring a preprogrammed tune, three (savable) coloring pages and five multileveled jigsaw puzzles provide additional story-derailing distractions. For children with a yen to personalize, the app includes a self-record option and a "bookplate" with spaces for a name and a photo.
Pure commercialized product, offering barely a hint of any literary, dramatic, musical or emotional experience and stocked with a scanty assortment of off-the-shelf interactive elements. (iPad movie storybook app. 5-7)Pub Date: May 31, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Disney Publishing Worldwide Applications
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back.
With such short arms, how can Tiny T. Rex give a sad friend a hug?
Fleck goes for cute in the simple, minimally detailed illustrations, drawing the diminutive theropod with a chubby turquoise body and little nubs for limbs under a massive, squared-off head. Impelled by the sight of stegosaurian buddy Pointy looking glum, little Tiny sets out to attempt the seemingly impossible, a comforting hug. Having made the rounds seeking advice—the dino’s pea-green dad recommends math; purple, New Age aunt offers cucumber juice (“That is disgusting”); red mom tells him that it’s OK not to be able to hug (“You are tiny, but your heart is big!”), and blue and yellow older sibs suggest practice—Tiny takes up the last as the most immediately useful notion. Unfortunately, the “tree” the little reptile tries to hug turns out to be a pterodactyl’s leg. “Now I am falling,” Tiny notes in the consistently self-referential narrative. “I should not have let go.” Fortunately, Tiny lands on Pointy’s head, and the proclamation that though Rexes’ hugs may be tiny, “I will do my very best because you are my very best friend” proves just the mood-lightening ticket. “Thank you, Tiny. That was the biggest hug ever.” Young audiences always find the “clueless grown-ups” trope a knee-slapper, the overall tone never turns preachy, and Tiny’s instinctive kindness definitely puts him at (gentle) odds with the dinky dino star of Bob Shea’s Dinosaur Vs. series.
Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7033-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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