A gorgeously told story of the people who come into your life for a reason.
Everything changes when a dandelion lands on a tiger’s tail.
A grumpy tiger is “bear-y mischievous,” much to the chagrin of his fellow forest dwellers. One day, a dandelion with a human face falls from the sky and becomes attached to Tiger’s tail. After a raucous round of tail spinning fails to detach the cankerwort, the cantankerous feline soon realizes that his new friend is his opposite; Tail-Flower makes friends with the denizens of the woods and encourages him to perform acts of benevolence, creating goodwill along the way. As time passes, Tiger and Tail-Flower get closer. Tiger’s orange fur turns white as snow, and Tail-Flower’s vibrant yellow leaves start to become white poofs; Tail-Flower’s face becomes lined, too. When Tiger and Tail-Flower get caught in a trap, Tail-Flower asks Tiger to blow. He does, and the dandelion’s delicate tendrils spread all over the forest; Tail-Flower is dead. The other animals come together to mourn the loss of their beloved friend and to rescue and comfort Tiger. Translated from Korean, this beautiful fable explores the need for companionship and the inevitability of death. With a mix of panels and full-page spreads, Lee’s loose, digital art makes fantastic use of the format, capturing both the exuberance of the good times and Tiger’s grief. The narrative is bookended by an East Asian–presenting elder who eagerly tells the tale.
A gorgeously told story of the people who come into your life for a reason. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781646144594
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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