Cheeky yet sincere.
Must you and your best friend be the same type of rodent?
This ode to friendship opens with the purest scansion and a hilarious setup (joyfully repeated later) that invites readers to chime in. “Lake Park only had one squirrel, / all alone and sad (poor Cyril). / Until the morning he met Pat, / his new best friend, a big gray…”—here’s the page turn, where readers will shout rat—”SQUIRREL! Just like me,” declares Cyril, arms wide open to Pat, who sports a wobbly smile and an extremely ratlike tail. The two romp all over their big-city park, startling pigeons, nabbing duck food, and fleeing a dog. Cyril interrupts all attempts to identify Pat as a rat. Only when humans—a black mom and child, each wearing a red sweater and red galoshes—let the rat out of the bag does Cyril see the truth. The other animals, annoyed, assert that “squirrels can’t be friends with rats,” and Pat (who’s never gendered) slinks off the page. “Cyril, now back on his own, / tried to play their games alone.” But he’s unhappy—and unsafe. In a dark, visually stunning sequence outside the park, Pat saves Cyril, and all is well. Scansion (after the opening) and rhyming are inconsistent, but Gravett’s great good humor and mischievous illustrations in pencil, watercolor, and acrylic ink are bang-on, as always—especially in the fact that besides tail and ear shapes, Cyril and Pat are almost identical.
Cheeky yet sincere. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3950-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Sadly, the storytelling runs aground.
A little red sleigh has big Christmas dreams.
Although the detailed, full-color art doesn’t anthropomorphize the protagonist (which readers will likely identify as a sled and not a sleigh), a close third-person text affords the object thoughts and feelings while assigning feminine pronouns. “She longed to become Santa’s big red sleigh,” reads an early line establishing the sleigh’s motivation to leave her Christmas-shop home for the North Pole. Other toys discourage her, but she perseveres despite creeping self-doubt. A train and truck help the sleigh along, and when she wishes she were big, fast, and powerful like them, they offer encouragement and counsel patience. When a storm descends after the sleigh strikes out on her own, an unnamed girl playing in the snow brings her to a group of children who all take turns riding the sleigh down a hill. When the girl brings her home, the sleigh is crestfallen she didn’t reach the North Pole. A convoluted happily-ever-after ending shows a note from Santa that thanks the sleigh for giving children joy and invites her to the North Pole next year. “At last she understood what she was meant to do. She would build her life up spreading joy, one child at a time.” Will she leave the girl’s house to be gifted to other children? Will she stay and somehow also reach ever more children? Readers will be left wondering. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 31.8% of actual size.)
Sadly, the storytelling runs aground. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72822-355-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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