For children ready to step past the primal “apples are red, leaves are green” stage of color coding, Shannon and Dronzek offer helping hands: “PINK is for crow . . . [turn the page] when it has just hatched from its egg. BLACK is for poppy . . . when we take the time to look inside,” and so on. The acrylic art underscores each observation in deep, rich hues; viewers can look down into a poppy’s dark center, glimpse a bear cub sniffing at white, unripe blueberries and observe the difference between a whole red apple and a cut one. Some of Shannon’s phrasing seems contorted—“Purple is for snow . . . when the snow is the shadow of us,” for instance, or “Yellow is for pine tree . . . when the tree has been cut and sawed to build,” accompanying a view of a lumberyard. Nevertheless, his insight will leave many young children regarding their world in a new way: “It all depends on when we look . . . how near or far . . . outside or in.” (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-029275-X
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This charming, colorful counting tale of ten little fish runs full-circle. Although the light verse opens and closes with ten fish swimming in a line, page-by-page the line grows shorter as the number of fish diminishes one-by-one. One fish dives down, one gets lost, one hides, and another takes a nap until a single fish remains. Then along comes another fish to form a couple and suddenly a new family of little fish emerges to begin all over. Slick, digitally-created images of brilliant marine flora and fauna give an illusion of underwater depth and silence enhancing the verse’s numerical and theatrical progression. The holistic story bubbles with life’s endless cycle. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-439-63569-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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