Entertaining and cheerful despite many unanswered questions.
An aspirational unicorn finds community.
Milly is overjoyed when she receives her acceptance letter for Unicorn School, which teaches “only the best and the brightest unicorns.” She’s actually “a donkey in a party hat,” but Milly can’t be blamed for sending “a misleading picture” with her application—the school is a cotton-candy–colored fever dream of rainbows and fountains. On her first day she bumps into a black-and-white bovine with a traffic cone on his head, a goat with a plunger on her forehead, and a camel balancing a glass bottle on its noggin, and all the animals seem equally anxious. Finally every other student admits that none of them are unicorns, either, and in the last jubilant illustration, they’ve all shed their costumes and are proudly posed under a sign announcing “The Awesome Animal School.” This story raises pressing questions: Are there real unicorns at the school? What did the administration do when they discovered that their entire incoming class was made up of non-unicorn quadrupeds? Did the curriculum change? But this is an excellent choice for any kid worried about fitting in in a new environment or for a reader looking for a humorous take on unicorns.
Entertaining and cheerful despite many unanswered questions. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-6844-6279-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Capstone Editions
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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
Handy advice for perpetually inquisitive children.
Interior decorator and TV personality Gaines invites readers to open their eyes and exercise their imaginations.
There’s a world to be explored out there—and only children can really take part. What does “looking for wonder” entail? Slowing down and looking up, around, and everywhere. At the outset, a group of eager, racially diverse young friends—including one who uses a wheelchair—are fully prepared for a grand adventure. They offer tips about how and where to look: Why, there’s a “grand parade” of marching ants! And, these kids add, perspective is key. A rainy day might signal gloom to some, but to those filled with wonder, showers bring “magic puddles for play”; a forest is “an enchanted world,” the ocean conceals “a spectacular city,” and the night sky boasts “extraordinary sights.” The takeaway: “Wonder is never in short supply.” It’s a robust, empowering message, as is the exhortation to “keep your mind open, and let curiosity guide the way.” Youngsters are also advised to share their discoveries. The upbeat narrative is delivered in clunky verse, but the colorful cartoonish illustrations brimming with activity and good cheer (including some adorable anthropomorphized animals in the backgrounds) make up for the textual lapses and should motivate readers to embark on their own “wonder explorations.”
Handy advice for perpetually inquisitive children. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781400247417
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tommy Nelson
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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