Even the youngest children don’t deserve this degree of dumbing down.
Little Raindrop journeys from cloud to sea and back again.
This is the water cycle, but it’s a simplistic telling that lacks any scientific vocabulary and stars an anthropomorphized water droplet with a face, hands and feet. Little Raindrop’s adventure begins as he falls from a cloud “[o]ne dark and stormy day,” but by the page turn, there’s enough sunlight to have made a rainbow, which Little Raindrop falls through, enjoying the colors along the way. Landing in a depression on a rock, his journey continues when other drops (nonanthropomorphized) accumulate enough to make his puddle overflow. Joining a stream, he sees all kinds of animals and chases the sticks the children toss in the water. When his stream joins a river, Little Raindrop avoids the sharp rocks of the waterfalls; in the sea, he meets dolphins. Coming to rest on the sand, “Little Raindrop got hotter and hotter, until the warmth of the sun drew him up into the air,” still in the shape of a raindrop, where he joins other smiling droplets in a gray cloud. Kolanovic’s illustrations have the gritty look of crayon drawings. Little Raindrop’s surroundings match his small size; while the background details are simple, the animals he encounters all sweet—cloyingly so. Fortunately the wellspring of intellectually respectful titles on the water cycle is far from dry.
Even the youngest children don’t deserve this degree of dumbing down. (Informational picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62873-821-6
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
Share this feel-good title with those who love art and those who can appreciate the confidence-building triumph of solving a...
Reynolds returns to a favorite topic—creative self-expression—with characteristic skill in a companion title to The Dot (2003) and Ish (2004).
Marisol is “an artist through and through. So when her teacher told her class they were going to paint a mural…, Marisol couldn’t wait to begin.” As each classmate claims a part of the picture to paint, Marisol declares she will “paint the sky.” But she soon discovers there is no blue paint and wonders what she will do without the vital color. Up to this point, the author uses color sparingly—to accent a poster or painting of Marisol’s or to highlight the paint jars on a desk. During her bus ride home, Marisol wonders what to do and stares out the window. The next spread reveals a vibrant departure from the gray tones of the previous pages. Reds, oranges, lemon yellows and golds streak across the sunset sky. Marisol notices the sky continuing to change in a rainbow of colors…except blue. After awakening from a colorful dream to a gray rainy day, Marisol smiles. With a fervent mixing of paints, she creates a beautiful swirling sky that she describes as “sky color.” Fans of Reynolds will enjoy the succinct language enhanced by illustrations in pen, ink, watercolor, gouache and tea.
Share this feel-good title with those who love art and those who can appreciate the confidence-building triumph of solving a problem on one’s own—creatively. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-2345-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history.
A sonorous, soporific invitation to join woodland creatures in bedding down for the night.
As in her Moon Babies, illustrated by Amy Hevron (2019), Jameson displays a rare gift for harmonious language and rhyme. She leads off with a bear: “Come home, Big Paws. / Berry picker / Honey trickster / Shadows deepen in the glen. / Lumber back inside your den.” Continuing in the same pattern, she urges a moose (“Velvet Nose”), a deer (“Tiny Hooves”), and a succession of ever smaller creatures to find their nooks and nests as twilight deepens in Boutavant’s woodsy, autumnal scenes and snow begins to drift down. Through each of those scenes quietly walks an alert White child (accompanied by an unusually self-controlled pooch), peering through branches or over rocks at the animals in the foregrounds and sketching them in a notebook. The observer’s turn comes round at last, as a bearded parent beckons: “This way, Small Boots. / Brave trailblazer / Bright stargazer / Cabin’s toasty. Blanket’s soft. / Snuggle deep in sleeping loft.” The animals go unnamed, leaving it to younger listeners to identify each one from the pictures…if they can do so before the verses’ murmurous tempo closes their eyes.
Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7063-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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