A simple yet charming premise wonderfully executed.
A child has lost their invisible dinosaur!
With impeccable comedic timing, a small Asian-presenting child with pale skin and straight black hair tied into spiky pigtails explains their predicament. Their dinosaur had been dirty, but after a bath, he disappeared. Delicately rendered minimalist spreads in muted colors focus on the child, while bright scribbly crayon depictions bring to life their story: A hose sprays a dino who’s mostly invisible against the white background except for brown “muddy” legs and belly. And once the bath is complete, there’s no trace of a dinosaur left. The child tries some plans that don’t work as intended: making piles of the dinosaur’s favorite peanut butter–and-jelly sandwich (which other adorably quirky animals come to eat) and putting up “lost” signs (the rectangle traditionally reserved for a photograph is blank). They explain that the dinosaur would be easy to spot in rain or snow “or anything really,” as crayon illustrations show raindrops and sleet creating a dinosaur-shaped negative space. But today is sunny and clear, and the dejected child trudges through a field of flowers and up a hill. But wait—dandelion fluff is falling onto a curved surface, but is it really a hill? The dinosaur’s peanut butter–and-jelly–smeared snout gives him away, and the child’s wide smile at their reunion is just as sweet. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A simple yet charming premise wonderfully executed. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: May 9, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5362-2625-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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
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