Well-meaning but misses the mark.
The weeklong Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkot is celebrated at Auntie Sanyu’s Ugandan home.
Auntie Sanyu, a Ugandan Jew, or Abayudaya, builds her sukkah in her lush garden, then invites friends and family to come and stay. Warthog arrives, politely eats, and shakes the lulav (a palm frond bound together with branches of willow and myrtle for use in the Sukkot ritual), but when he sniffs the etrog, the ceremonial citrus’ lemony scent is so appealing he cannot let it go. On the successive six days when Lion, Parrot, Camel, Giraffe, and Rhino come, each takes a turn shaking the lulav, but Warthog selfishly holds onto the etrog, to the anger and annoyance of everyone else. “They took turns with the lulav. They shook it west to east. / But Warthog grabbed the etrog! And Camel muttered, BEAST!” The rhyming cumulative tale ends amicably when Auntie Sanyu’s sole human guest, her niece, Sara, joins the group and nicely asks Warthog for the etrog. “She made him feel so sheepish, he couldn’t tell her ‘No.’ / Then Warthog SHARED the etrog, and the guests all cried, BRAVO!” Digital artwork provides a colorful shot of African ambiance with animated depictions of the animals and stylized, deeply brown-skinned women. This alternate perspective presents familiar components of the holiday and provides background on the Abayudaya in an author’s note and glossary. Unfortunately, it perpetuates stereotypes of Africa by emphasizing animals over humans; surely Auntie Sanyu has more than one relation to celebrate with?
Well-meaning but misses the mark. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5415-0966-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kar-Ben
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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