While cute, this doesn’t stand out on an already-crowded shelf.
A continuation of James and Brown’s Loves You! series.
As in her previous titles in the series, James’ first-person narrator, a bipedal but unclothed father bunny in Brown’s illustrations, describes the many ways he shares his love and affection with his child. “Daddy loves you, bunny-bear, / much more than words can say. / You are your daddy’s sunshine. / I’ll love you every day.” Readers follow along, the adults possibly remembering their own shared experiences with a father figure, as the father-child duo explores the world, plays together, and beds down at night. The father echoes sentiments common to parents everywhere: “Do your best. Be bold and kind, / be all you want to be. / You’ll be a superhero / …especially to me.” But James missteps when the father says he’ll “protect you, / wherever you may go,” a promise parents can’t always keep. Brilliant spring colors and adorable, loving animals make this a title kids will gravitate toward. Indeed, Dad’s paw atop his tot’s head in a tender caress and the child cradled in their father’s arms, nose to nose, as the sun rises are hard to resist. Labeled a “Keepsake Edition,” the book has a page in the frontmatter designed for a gift inscription and date, and the backmatter has space for a personalized “Special Letter to My Favorite Bunny” and a photo of “Daddy and child.”
While cute, this doesn’t stand out on an already-crowded shelf. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-53411-059-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
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
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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