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BEFORE WE SLEEP

Name: BEFORE WE SLEEP
Author: Giorgio Volpe
ISBN: 978-1-63655-004-6

by Giorgio Volpe ; illustrated by Paolo Proietti ; translated by Angus Yuen-Killick ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2021

Visual beauty plus the beauty of closeness in sad times. Cuddle close for this one.

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This Italian import asks readers to consider: What if one friend needs to hibernate and the other doesn’t?

The forest is turning “rich amber, burned orange, and chestnut brown.” Little Red, a burnt-orange fox with a sharp snout, revels in the camouflage, excited to go unseen by Hazel the dormouse. Before readers can grasp the wisp of a predator-prey implication, the page turn curves lightly in the opposite direction: Hazel and Little Red are best friends, blissfully frolicking together in the autumn leaves. The hiding is for hide-and-seek. This joy is fleeting, though, because “the smell of winter mean[s] one thing: loneliness.” The fox is the vulnerable one; Hazel’s about to hibernate. Hazel’s burrow—a two-storied teapot featuring a duvet-covered bed, an oven, and tea towel—will hold Hazel all winter long, leaving Little Red alone and forlorn. Proietti’s gently textured fox fur, grasses, plants, and skies are softly melancholy. Close-ups (Hazel dozing off while holding Little Red’s ear) alternate with landscapes: half-bare trees whose trunks are starkly discrete, symbolizing winter’s isolation; the sun hanging low in a pale, yellow-gray sky as the two friends sit motionless. Eventually, Hazel and Little Red fall asleep together outside the teapot. Whether this solves the problem or merely postpones it, their affection is a solid comfort.

Visual beauty plus the beauty of closeness in sad times. Cuddle close for this one. (Picture book. 3-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-63655-004-6

Page Count: 28

Publisher: Red Comet Press

Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FRIENDSHIP SURPRISE
by Giorgio Volpe illustrated by Paolo Proietti ; translated by Angus Yuen-Killick

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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LOVE FROM THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2015

Safe to creep on by.

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Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.

In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.

Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)