Fundamental, and fertile per se, is the idea of a single rock as a micro-environment: threaded through, in effect supplying a plot line, is the compulsive search of a mole cricket for another of his kind — a search that climaxes, after many creatures have been bypassed, in a primal outcry ("He crackled his loneliness. He crackled his whereabouts. He crackled his need. . .") and an awesome response: one after another flies up, drops down, gathering "as mole crickets do, not to mate, not to eat, but for reasons no one knows. Solitary creatures all the days of their lives, each leaves his earthen home on one festive night and rushes together with other mole crickets to dance, crackle and touch." An extraordinary interlude, upon a stone or anywhere — but on and around the stone there is a problem in the failure of the illustrations to depict clearly what is detailed in the text. For the artist had an idea too, of emphasizing "the unity of the microcosm" by painting the stone and its inhabitants as a whole, then actually enlarging the relevant sectors to accompany the story. Seen whole, the stone pulsates: seen separately, forms may be indistinguishable. It seems a stunt, especially for the young child who'll have trouble seeing the relationship of the parts to the whole (the whole being, remember, only 6fl x 7fl). Nonetheless and not the least, there is the mole cricket's plaintive crackling.
Pub Date: Feb. 18, 1971
ISBN: 0690055323
Page Count: 56
Publisher: T.Y. Crowell
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1971
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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