Honors both family diversity and the ways babies explore books.
Family members practice kindness simply throughout the day.
The latest in the popular Indestructibles series shows members of a family being polite, helping one another, and sharing. Marketed as “books babies can really sink their gums into,” Indestructibles are baby- and toddler-friendly with paperlike, washable pages that hold up to little hands and mouths. Depending on the child’s small-motor development, the pages may be harder to turn than the rigid pages of its cousin format, the board book, but its lightness means it is easier to carry and hold. After asking, “How can we be kind today?” the text suggests sharing, “help[ing] around the house,” and “spend[ing] time together.” The brevity of the text makes it an appropriate length for babies, with enough supporting visuals that caregivers can point out depicted household objects. The family is presented as interracial, and the book cover features two children, one black-presenting and one white-presenting. Trukhan’s illustrations are two-dimensional and geometric, with bold colors. There are nice details, like the family’s pup that readers meet on the first page appearing in a photo on the kitchen fridge later on. While the story itself is ordinary, the real win here is the baby-friendly format that encourages reading and play.
Honors both family diversity and the ways babies explore books. (Board book. 6-18 mos.)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5235-0987-4
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
Little Blue Truck keeps on truckin’—but not without some backfires.
Little Blue Truck feels, well, blue when he delivers valentine after valentine but receives nary a one.
His bed overflowing with cards, Blue sets out to deliver a yellow card with purple polka dots and a shiny purple heart to Hen, one with a shiny fuchsia heart to Pig, a big, shiny, red heart-shaped card to Horse, and so on. With each delivery there is an exchange of Beeps from Blue and the appropriate animal sounds from his friends, Blue’s Beeps always set in blue and the animal’s vocalization in a color that matches the card it receives. But as Blue heads home, his deliveries complete, his headlight eyes are sad and his front bumper droops ever so slightly. Blue is therefore surprised (but readers may not be) when he pulls into his garage to be greeted by all his friends with a shiny blue valentine just for him. In this, Blue’s seventh outing, it’s not just the sturdy protagonist that seems to be wilting. Schertle’s verse, usually reliable, stumbles more than once; stanzas such as “But Valentine’s Day / didn’t seem much fun / when he didn’t get cards / from anyone” will cause hitches during read-alouds. The illustrations, done by Joseph in the style of original series collaborator Jill McElmurry, are pleasant enough, but his compositions often feel stiff and forced.
Little Blue Truck keeps on truckin’—but not without some backfires. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-27244-1
Page Count: 20
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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