A familiar take on the bedtime struggle, this tender nighttime story will safely soothe readers to dreamy bliss.
Rawlinson takes on the bedtime battle with a patient mother who finds herself on the losing end.
“I can’t sleep!” Molly starts innocently enough. Mother and child commence the bedtime story ritual. In flowing, rhyming text, the mom suggests soothing imaginary scenes including imagining she’s a “camel” in a “desert land” where “the heat makes you sleepy” or being “in a little boat rocked by a sleepy sea swell.” Each attempt is usurped by Molly’s imagination: “Camel’s thirsty,” she interrupts. “Could it please have a drink?” And: “Let’s have pirates as well, with monkeys and parrots and treasure and fighting.” The mom’s gentle pleas to keep it quiet seem futile against the energetic creativity of Molly. Yet she makes one last effort, invoking the image of being on a “tropical land” with “palm leaves” that “sway in the breeze.” At least one person eventually falls asleep. Rawlinson uses subtle humor and sparse lines to narrate. Paired with Wong’s sweet and simple pencil drawings, filled with subdued hues and gray shadows, the story has an overall calming tone. Molly and her mother are depicted as Asian in the illustrations. Unlike Molly’s mom, adult users of this title are likely to find sleepy success.
A familiar take on the bedtime struggle, this tender nighttime story will safely soothe readers to dreamy bliss. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3442-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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