Brammer’s nostalgic tale, a grown-up’s remembrance of a boyhood trip to his grandparents’ ranch, zeroes in on the excitement of encountering an unknown place for the first time and of enjoying a family reunion full of cousins, aunts, and uncles. Family stories—of buying the ranch “for a song,” of eggs that gently roll down from the chickens’ nests in a tree—are recounted with a nod and a wink, and the celebratory atmosphere of the barbecue supper and impromptu “jam session” of the men is warm and full of relaxed, summer happiness. Cruz’s full-page, full-color illustrations face the text, with English above and Spanish below. The illustrations combine an almost photographic detail with an appealingly naïf depth perception which makes some parts of the scene feel three-dimensional, while others are more typical. Likely to be especially useful in studies of family and rural life, as well as in comparisons of the ways in which students’ families resemble and differ from Tito’s large, expressive Latino family. (Picture book. 1-4)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-55885-409-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Piñata Books/Arte Público
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
Mindfully executed (mostly).
In this rhyming board book, 13 cheerful children move through a day of yoga postures, from a morning sun salutation to a bedtime “sleeping pose.”
The opening lines mirror the cadence of the old song “Skinnamarink”: “I love you in the morning / when you salute the sun. // I love you when you stretch out straight. / Our day has now begun!” Unfortunately, the rhyme and scansion deteriorate as the verse continues. “I love you in the garden / when we say hello to plants and trees” is fine, but it’s followed by the tortured “I love you when you make me laugh— / you’re full of such sillies,” and rhyming “down” with “proud” is a huge stretch. Still, the 13 children shown incorporating yoga into everyday play are a diverse bunch. The adults helping the children dress, garden, play, meditate, fly, manage emotions, and explore are equally varied in terms of age and race, though there are no characters with visible disabilities. Any book lover will appreciate the penultimate stanza: “I love you / when we read book… / after book… / after book until the end of the day.” The final line abandons the meter completely. “It is time for bed, sleepyhead. / Namaste.” The last spread labels the poses modeled by each of the children. Clear backgrounds, a large clean type, and thick pages turn this simple paean to love into a useful instruction manual for the youngest yogis.
Mindfully executed (mostly). (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-5489-7
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
It’s nothing new, but it’s also clearly heartfelt.
A love song from parents to their child.
This title will seem quite similar to the many others about parents’ deep love for their children. The text is wholly composed of first-person declarations of parental love, and it’s juxtaposed with illustrations of the child with one or both parents. It’s not always clear who the “I” speaking is, and there are a few pages that instead use “we.” Most sentences begin with “I love you more” phrasing to communicate that nothing could undermine parental love: “I love you more than all the sleepless nights…and all the early, tired mornings.” The accompanying pictures depict the child as a baby with weary parents. Later spreads show the child growing up, and the phrasing shifts away from the challenges of parenting to its joys and to attempts to quantify love: “I love you more than all the blades of grass at the park…and all the soccer that we played.” Throughout, Bell’s illustrations use pastel tones and soft visual texture to depict cozy, wholesome scenes that are largely redundant of the straightforward, warm text. They feature a brown-haired family with a mother, father, and child, who all appear to be white (though the father has skin that’s a shade darker than the others’).
It’s nothing new, but it’s also clearly heartfelt. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0652-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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