A very odd book indeed.
A young boy describes all the animal pals his family members have.
With bouncing rhymes that sometimes miss the rhythm, the narrator introduces readers to each member of his extended (and all-white) family and his or her animal buddy as they pile into an increasingly crowded old-fashioned station wagon. Dad has an elephant, the narrator has a brown bear, his sister’s friend’s a whale, and brother has a purple dino. Already pretty stuffed, the car somehow manages to fit, one by one, an aunt, an uncle, a cousin, Grandma, Grandpa, and the family dog, all of whom add animals of their own (even the dog has one: a puppy). “Look! My cousin’s kangaroo / Has a switch that makes it hop. / Perhaps the switch is broken… / The hopping just won’t stop!” Observant readers with two-parent families may notice who is missing and guess the reason, especially with the addition of two polar bear cubs along the way, but as to why they are meeting in what looks like a park, there is no clue. Dodd’s pen-and-ink–and–Photoshop artwork is marked by her usual round faces, black outlines, and bright colors. Adults may keep waiting for the punch line that all the animals are stuffed (especially considering that dino and the whale), but it never comes.
A very odd book indeed. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61963-851-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
A funny tale about stress and an ever upping ante, with a comforting end.
Something is preventing Owl from falling asleep.
Owl leans back against his white pillow and headboard. “Squeek!” says something underneath the bed. Owl’s never heard that sound before, so he fastens his pink bathrobe and answers the front door. Nobody. It must be the wind; back to bed. Bidding himself goodnight, he climbs into bed—and hears the noise again. Time after time, he pops out of bed seeking the squeaker. Is it in the cupboard? He empties the shelves. Under the floor? He pulls up his floorboards. As Owl’s actions ratchet up—he destroys the roof and smashes the walls, all in search of the squeak—so does his anxiety. Not until he hunkers down in bed under the night sky (his bed is now outdoors, because the house’s roof and walls are gone), frantically clutching his pillow, does he see what readers have seen all along: a small, gray mouse. In simple illustrations with black outlines, textured coloring, and foreshortened perspective, Pizzoli plays mischievously with mouse placement. Sometimes the mouse is behind Owl or just out of his sightline; other times, the mouse is on a solid, orange-colored page across the spread from Owl, which removes him from Owl’s scene in a rather postmodern manner. Is the mouse toying with Owl? Who knows?
A funny tale about stress and an ever upping ante, with a comforting end. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-1275-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
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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