by Jory John ; illustrated by Pete Oswald ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 21, 2019
It’s got witty illustrations, but it paints a pretty bleak picture for society.
When a T. Rex gets a sore throat and cannot roar for one whole week, his self-control is tested.
William loves to roar. But not just for the sake of making loud noise. He loves hiding, sneaking, and scaring, along with roaring. He can’t help it. As the titular refrain explains: “That’s what dinosaurs do.” Oswald’s blue-dappled, toothy dino peers out from behind bushes, frightening folks in literally hair-raising fashion (even the sheep that he scares have their wool standing on end). But when the doctor tells William he must rest his voice in order to cure his sore throat, he doesn’t know how to act. He wraps a big roll of gauze around his snout and slumps through town, dejected. It’s not very much fun for William, but the townspeople are ecstatic. No more roaring! No more scaring! But will William be able to keep it up? Though moments of growth are present (William does recognize that he shouldn’t scare others), readers may be taken aback by the unabashedly unapologetic prehistoric creature’s resistance to rehabilitation. Instead of reaching for a clever way to impart wisdom, John leans heavily on the excuse, “That’s what dinosaurs do.” William is a bully, with no hope of reformation.
It’s got witty illustrations, but it paints a pretty bleak picture for society. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-234319-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings
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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino
by Dev Petty ; illustrated by Lauren Eldridge ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 20, 2017
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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by Dev Petty ; illustrated by Mike Boldt
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