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MY BED IS AN AIR BALLOON

Name: MY BED IS AN AIR BALLOON
Author: Julia Copus
ISBN: 978-0-5713-3484-1

by Julia Copus ; illustrated by Alison Jay ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 30, 2018

A light bedtime story for children with a taste for whimsy and nonsense.

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Dreamy sights and imaginary creatures surround children floating in their beds in this sleepy rhyming picture book.

From the front, a boy in his air-balloon bed sails “through the slipsiverse, close by the moon,” above trees and hilltops where “fluttertufts” and “whifflepigs” sleep and creep, over “ponds strong with starlight,” and up through the air. His bed is finally blown “adrift on the sea where the dream-shapes float; / When night falls my bed is a sailing boat.” The child’s bed, rather improbably, becomes the balloon itself, the dangling basket his dog’s bed, and when it transforms into the sailing ship, the dog’s bed becomes a dinghy it tow. In the middle of the book, his sailing-boat bed meets that of a girl, whose adventure is then followed to the end of the book. It mirrors his exactly, ending with “When night falls my bed is an air balloon.” The book can be read from front to back or from back to front, which is poetic and intriguing once readers unaccustomed to right-to-left texts get used to it. Jay’s whimsical paintings with their soft lines, calming blue-green-natural palette, round-faced children, and smiling moon match perfectly with Copus’ rhythmic text to make for a calming bedtime read. The boy is white with sandy blond hair and blue eyes; the girl is black, with brown afro puffs.

A light bedtime story for children with a taste for whimsy and nonsense. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-5713-3484-1

Page Count: 16

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
HOG IN THE FOG
by Julia Copus ; illustrated by Eunyoung Seo

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WHERE ARE YOUR SHOES, MR. BROWN?

by Justin Rhodes ; illustrated by Heather Dickinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 14, 2023

Pedestrian.

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Mr. Brown can’t help with farm chores because his shoes are missing—a common occurrence in his household and likely in many readers’ as well.

Children will be delighted that the titular Mr. Brown is in fact a child. After Mr. Brown looks in his closet and sorts through his other family members’ shoes with no luck, his father and his siblings help him search the farm. Eventually—after colorful pages that enable readers to spot footwear hiding—the family gives up on their hunt, and Mr. Brown asks to be carried around for the chores. He rides on his father’s shoulders as Papa gets his work done, as seen on a double-page spread of vignettes. The resolution is more of a lesson for the adult readers than for children, a saccharine moment where father and son express their joy that the missing shoes gave them the opportunity for togetherness—with advice for other parents to appreciate those fleeting moments themselves. Though the art is bright and cheerful, taking advantage of the setting, it occasionally is misaligned with the text (for example, the text states that Mr. Brown is wearing his favorite green shirt while the illustration is of a shirt with wide stripes of white and teal blue, which could confuse readers at the point where they’re trying to figure out which family member is Mr. Brown). The family is light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Pedestrian. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: March 14, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-5460-0389-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: WorthyKids/Ideals

Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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TOYS GALORE

by Peter Stein ; illustrated by Bob Staake ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2013

Clever verse coupled with bold primary-colored images is sure to attract and hone the attention of fun-seeking children...

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A fizzy yet revealing romp through the toy world.

Though of standard picture-book size, Stein and illustrator Staake’s latest collaboration (Bugs Galore, 2012, etc.) presents a sweeping compendium of diversions for the young. From fairies and gnomes, race cars and jacks, tin cans and socks, to pots ’n’ pans and a cardboard box, Stein combs the toy kingdom for equally thrilling sources of fun. These light, tightly rhymed quatrains focus nicely on the functions characterizing various objects, such as “Floaty, bubbly, / while-you-wash toys” or “Sharing-secrets- / with-tin-cans toys,” rather than flatly stating their names. Such ambiguity at once offers Staake free artistic rein to depict copious items capable of performing those tasks and provides pre-readers ample freedom to draw from the experiences of their own toy chests as they scan Staake’s vibrant spreads brimming with chunky, digitally rendered objects and children at play. The sense of community and sharing suggested by most of the spreads contributes well to Stein’s ultimate theme, which he frames by asking: “But which toy is / the best toy ever? / The one most fun? / Most cool and clever?” Faced with three concluding pages filled with all sorts of indoor and outside toys to choose from, youngsters may be shocked to learn, on turning to the final spread, that the greatest one of all—“a toy SENSATION!”—proves to be “[y]our very own / imagination.”

Clever verse coupled with bold primary-colored images is sure to attract and hone the attention of fun-seeking children everywhere. (Picture book. 4-7)