A delicious, snow-filled slice of life.
A father and child enjoy a frigid day together in the city.
In first-person narration, with a definite sense of ownership, a youngster describes winter in an urban setting. “My winter city holds early light / around us, / a moment before sunrise, / silent, / still.” Nothing is plowed, nothing is touched. There is just the young tot peering out the window, looking at the snow. Then, with toboggan firmly in tow, the duo (along with a pup) sets off outside. The serene silence has changed. “My winter city is a soup of salty slushes, full of sliding buses / splashing, spraying, sploshing, soaking walkers on the sidewalk.” They squeeze into the bus with other damp riders, all fogging up the windows. Then they emerge into a new scene—a park. “My winter city is a deep-freeze / vision of big icy sled hills / and towers that rise up through / far-away skies.” The buildings loom large behind trees and newly cut sledding tracks. Snowflakes continue to dot the sky throughout the adventure, all the way until home again. This specific setting may be unfamiliar to some readers, but the narrator opens the end to varied possibilities: “That’s my winter city. // What’s yours?” Clement surprises readers with unexpected compositions, crowding them into the bus with all the passengers then pulling back and up for a bird’s-eye view of the city street. Father and child both present white, but the community they inhabit is a diverse one.
A delicious, snow-filled slice of life. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77306-010-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree.
A Christmas edition of the beloved alphabet book.
The story starts off nearly identically to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989), written by John Archambault and the late Bill Martin Jr, with the letters A, B, and C deciding to meet in the branches of a tree. This time, they’re attempting to scale a Christmas tree, not a coconut tree, and the letters are strung together like garland. A, B, and C are joined by the other letters, and of course they all “slip, slop, topple, plop!” right down the tree. At the bottom, they discover an assortment of gifts, all in a variety of shapes. As a team, the letters and presents organize themselves to get back up on the Christmas tree and get a star to the top. Holiday iterations of favorite tales often fall flat, but this take succeeds. The gifts are an easy way to reinforce another preschool concept—shapes—and the text uses just enough of the original to be familiar. The rhyming works, sticking to the cadence of the source material. The illustrations pay homage to the late Lois Ehlert’s, featuring the same bold block letters, though they lack some of the whimsy and personality of the original. Otherwise, everything is similarly brightly colored and simply drawn. Those familiar with the classic will be drawn to this one, but newcomers can enjoy it on its own.
A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781665954761
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Fun enough to read once but without enough substance to last.
Familiar crayon characters argue over which color is the essential Christmas color.
Green starts by saying that green is for Christmas. After all, green is for holly. But Red objects. Red is for candy canes. Green is for fir trees, Green retorts. But Red is for Santa Claus, who agrees. (Santa is depicted as a white-bearded White man.) Then White joins the fray. After spending the year being invisible, White isn’t giving up the distinction of association with Christmas. Snow, anyone? But then there’s Silver: stars and bells. And Brown: cookies and reindeer! At this point, everyone is confused. But they come together and agree that Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without all of them together. Someone may get the last word, though. In Daywalt and Jeffers’ now-signature style, the crayon-written text is spare and humorous, while the crayon characters engage with each other against a bare white background, vying for attention. Dot-eyed faces and stick legs on each object turn them all into comical, if similar, personalities. But the series’ original cleverness is absent here, leaving readers with a perfunctory recitation of attributes. Fans of the crayon books may delight in another themed installment; those who aren’t already fans will likely find it lacking. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Fun enough to read once but without enough substance to last. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-35338-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
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