A perfect choice for bedtime reading, featuring a muted color palette and soothing rhyme.
A delightful dream legend by children’s book author Depalma (Young Cupid!, 2008, etc.), featuring wonderfully absurd cartoons by debut artist Brown.
Every night, a man travels around the world, walking down the streets but always remaining just out of sight. He leads the Night Parade, which collects nightmares and pleasant dreams alike, which leave their dreamers to fall in line. Sometimes, Brown depicts the dreams as abstract swirls; at others, he depicts solid images that hint at the dream’s contents: a jack out of the box, popping through the roof of a house or a train bursting through the wall of another. The mysterious man sometimes leaves dreams for people to ponder in the morning; even those that dreamers have forgotten may return if something prompts a recollection. Overall, the Night Parade leader doesn’t get rid of the dreams he harvests; instead, he protects the good ones from the bad. Why go to all the effort? “So we long for something more. / It’s something we’ve forgotten, / something missing in our core,” Depalma explains. The book’s implication is that lost dreams drive people to accomplish great things, to travel the world, to strive toward their goals. Young readers may not find that idea as poignant as their parents do, but they’ll still likely fall into the wonderfully textured rhythm of the words as they settle in for the night: “Past the walls, beyond the gate, / and above each flower’s bloom, / they melt into the line-up / of his falling footstep tune.” Although the leader of the Night Parade is quite unassuming in the illustrations, the dreams that follow him will make wonderful starting points for readers to begin their own tales as they explore the many different types of dreams.
A perfect choice for bedtime reading, featuring a muted color palette and soothing rhyme.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-53528-8
Page Count: 42
Publisher: Umbrelly Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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
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