Cheery and lighthearted—and a lot less inclusive than it thinks it is.
When her dad gets too busy for bedtime, Shailey gets busy replacing him.
Shailey loves bedtime, basking in its rituals of sliding into her PJ’s, brushing her teeth, and combing her bookshelf for the perfect story. But then her dad gets a new job, and suddenly he is either too busy or too tired to perform his bedtime duties adequately, leading Shailey to fire him and post an announcement for his replacement. Shortly before bedtime, the interview process commences. Illustrations depict the casts of popular stories: the Three Little Pigs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the Big Bad Wolf, etc. The storybook characters, mostly white, animal, or edible, create quite the ruckus, causing Shailey to tweak the announcement again and again. Finally she finds a promising job seeker. With his familiar looks, just-right voice, and strawberries-and–chocolate chip cookies smell, Dad has all the prerequisites for the job, provided he keeps work off-limits during bedtime! The HR jargon the book depends on may sail over young readers’ heads, but the book’s saucy tone has the potential to delight a broad audience. But even though the book features a black protagonist and her father and a few of the storybook characters are depicted as characters of color, the latter all come from the Western European canon—a telling detail that undermines the fun.
Cheery and lighthearted—and a lot less inclusive than it thinks it is. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68446-075-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Capstone Editions
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This multigenerational snuggle will encourage the sharing of old memories and the creation of new ones.
Hill and Bobbiesi send a humungous hug from grandmothers to their granddaughters everywhere.
Delicate cartoon art adds details to the rhyming text showing multigenerational commonalities. “You and I are alike in such wonderful ways. / You will see more and more as you grow” (as grandmother and granddaughter enjoy the backyard together); “I wobbled uncertainly just as you did / whenever I tried something new” (as a toddler takes first steps); “And if a bad dream woke me up in the night, / I snuggled up with my lovey too” (grandmother kisses granddaughter, who clutches a plush narwhal). Grandmother-granddaughter pairs share everyday joys like eating ice cream, dancing “in the rain,” and making “up silly games.” Although some activities skew stereotypically feminine (baking, yoga), a grandmother helps with a quintessential volcano experiment (this pair presents black, adding valuable STEM representation), another cheers on a young wheelchair athlete (both present Asian), and a third, wearing a hijab, accompanies her brown-skinned granddaughter on a peace march, as it is “important to speak out for what you believe.” The message of unconditional love is clear throughout: “When you need me, I’ll be there to listen and care. / There is nothing that keeps us apart.” The finished book will include “stationery…for a special letter from Grandma to you!”
This multigenerational snuggle will encourage the sharing of old memories and the creation of new ones. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0623-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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