Relentlessly facile—but if action ever begins with goal visualization, at least a place to start.
Following Touch the Earth (2017), young readers are invited to fly on further missions of mercy to our beleaguered planet and its residents.
A feather converts with a tap on the image of a button in the right-hand corner of the spread and a page turn to a White Feather Flier (named after Lennon’s charitable White Feather Foundation) that transports, in Coh’s misty, painted pictures, a thoroughly diverse quartet of children to a variety of troubled places. They visit in succession a town whose residents lack medical services, a bleached coral reef, a drab urban neighborhood, and a clear-cut rainforest. At every stop, further taps on a button image bring instant relief: The Flier becomes a mobile hospital; “zooks” (zooxanthellae, depicted as tiny green cells with smiley faces) return to give the reef color and life; the city gets a new green space; and the devastated forest’s flora and fauna are restored to lush life. Following vague exhortations to “work together” and to “make healing an adventure,” Lennon concludes with six solo-credited stanzas of similarly airy sentiment: “Come together, see it through, / End disease and hunger too. / Help the children, one and all. / Winter, Summer, Spring, and Fall.” Thoughtfully, the humans in need are depicted as diverse and not uniformly brown; slightly less thoughtfully, one of the two brown-skinned children among the helpers is depicted with knotted hair that recalls the pickaninny stereotype.
Relentlessly facile—but if action ever begins with goal visualization, at least a place to start. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5107-2853-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
Sure to “net” young audiences, who will definitely root for the birds.
A peace-waging parable, presented with wry minimalism à la Jon Klassen or Tomi Ungerer.
Carrying nets, three hunters creep up on a sleeping bird in a dark forest, but thanks to their own clumsiness, they repeatedly manage to get in one another’s way as the bird slips off. Meanwhile, despite their frantic shushing, a smaller, fourth figure waves and calls out “hello birdie,” offering bread. Soon, an entire flock has gathered around number four’s feet—a flock that proceeds to turn and chase the hunters away. The text runs to just a few words per page, but it neatly serves to crank up the suspense: “ready one / ready two / ready three… // GO!” Haughton (Oh No, George!, 2012) uses a palette of deep blues and purples for his simple forest scenes; this causes the hunters’ googly eyes to stand out comically and also makes the fuchsia, red and orange birds easy to spot and follow. Last seen creeping up on a squirrel, the hunters have plainly learned nothing from their experience…but young readers might.
Sure to “net” young audiences, who will definitely root for the birds. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7293-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
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