Soothing at bedtime yet with enough substance for an autumn group storytime.
A fluttering line of autumn leaves flying across every double-page spread announces the wind’s presence.
Autumn Wind is a character here, inviting all the forest animals to the “annual Windfall Ball.” The event is not just a night’s entertainment, but the opportunity for the animals to gather the food they each need for the long winter ahead. As Swenson explains to adults at the end, a “windfall” can be “fruit or other crops blown down by the wind” or “an unexpected gift or good fortune.” As part of the harvest season, in the northern woods of the United States, the author’s home, the wind does its natural part in bringing down foods that can be eaten, or gathered and stored according to their needs, by the region’s animals, some hibernating, some able to live through harsh winters, and some who migrate to southern areas. This fanciful depiction in rhyme of the invisible wind that affects many animals with its hospitality scans well. “Then Autumn Wind began to dance— / It breezed, / it blew, / it puffed, / it pranced. / Beckoning both big and small / To join in step at the Windfall Ball.” There are plenty of animals to spot in the soft, yet vibrant mixed media illustrations that combine the use of watercolor, tempera, and colored pencils with digital retouching: rabbits, bears, raccoons, elk, and quail, among them. This satisfying book for the fall season emphasizes the interconnectivity of nature.
Soothing at bedtime yet with enough substance for an autumn group storytime. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5124-9803-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Millbrook/Lerner
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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