The luster dims a bit for the author and illustrator of Night Workers (2000) and their other wonderfully soothing picture books, as they go more for poetry than science in trying to give younger children a sense of our planet's antiquity. While a dark-eyed boy picks up a rock on a beach, contemplates it quietly, then takes it home to place alongside his collection of sea glass, flashback scenes track his prize from its volcanic origins, as it "cooled in the shade of a thousand years," lay on a grassy highland while dinosaurs came and went, sheltered cave-dwellers, partly blocked an ancient city street, was washed down to the sea, and finally came to be "thrust" in some unexplained manner, "onto the beach." The semi-impressionistic paintings are tranquil as ever, even when that mood isn't really appropriate, and the rock, depicted as an indistinct, darkly orange blob, seems to move under its own power into and out of the calm ocean. Share this with a child at bed or rest time, but other rocks make less arbitrary, and more clearly articulated, journeys in such books as Meredith Hooper's Pebble in My Pocket (1996). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: April 6, 2001
ISBN: 0-374-32566-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
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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