Share this admirable appreciation with a wide audience. (Picture book/poetry. 4-10)
Twenty-three poems and evocative watercolor paintings pay tribute to the wonders of the ocean world.
The versatile Coombs shows she’s as adept at poetry as she is at concocting or adapting fairy tales (Hans My Hedgehog, 2012, etc.). She invites young readers into her celebration with an opening “Song of the Boat” and ends with the message of the “Tideline.” “ ‘Don’t forget me— / I was here, / wasss h e r e / wasssss h e r e …’ ” Varied rhyme and rhythmic patterns and surprising connections characterize these relatively short poems, which read aloud well and stick in the memory. There’s humor, interesting language and intriguing imagery, as when the Gulper Eel’s “astronomical maw” is compared to a black hole. Thoughtful organization and placement of text on the page and So’s wavery, watery illustrations extend the poems’ meaning. A series of couplets describing “What the Waves Say” is illustrated with panels of varying water-surface patterns. Three different jellyfish poems share a double-page spread; another spread emphasizes the size of a blue whale with its vertical orientation and a shipwreck lying at the bottom. Sand-colored endpapers show objects washed up on shore: a shell, a feather, a crab’s claw and what might just be the remains of a footprint.
Share this admirable appreciation with a wide audience. (Picture book/poetry. 4-10)Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8118-7284-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
A lushly illustrated homage to librarians who provide a welcome and a home away from home for all who enter.
A love letter to libraries.
A Black child, with hair in two puffballs tied with yellow ribbons, a blue dress with a Peter Pan collar, and black patent leather Mary Janes, helps Grandmother with the housework, then, at Grandmother’s suggestion, heads to the library. The child’s eagerness to go, with two books under an arm and one in their hand, suggests that this is a favorite destination. The books’ wordless covers emphasize their endless possibilities. The protagonist’s description of the library makes clear that they are always free to be themselves there—whether they feel happy or sad, whether they’re reading mysteries or recipes, and whether they feel “quick and smart” or “contained and cautious.” Robinson’s vibrant, carefully composed digital illustrations, with bright colors that invite readers in and textures and patterns in every image, effectively capture the protagonist’s passion for reading and appreciation for a space where they feel accepted regardless of disposition. In her author’s note, Giovanni states that she spent summers visiting her grandmother in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she went to the Carnegie Branch of the Lawson McGhee Library. She expresses gratitude for Mrs. Long, the librarian, who often traveled to the main library to get books that Giovanni could not find in their segregated branch. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A lushly illustrated homage to librarians who provide a welcome and a home away from home for all who enter. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-358-38765-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Versify/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
There’s always tomorrow.
A lyrical message of perseverance and optimism.
The text uses direct address, which the title- and final-page illustrations suggest comes from an adult voice, to offer inspiration and encouragement. The opening spreads reads, “Tonight as you sleep, a new day stirs. / Each kiss good night is a wish for tomorrow,” as the accompanying art depicts a child with black hair and light skin asleep in a bed that’s fantastically situated in a stylized landscape of buildings, overpasses, and roadways. The effect is dreamlike, in contrast with the next illustration, of a child of color walking through a field and blowing dandelion fluff at sunrise. Until the last spread, each child depicted in a range of settings is solitary. Some visual metaphors falter in terms of credibility, as in the case of a white-appearing child using a wheelchair in an Antarctic ice cave strewn with obstacles, as the text reads “you’ll explore the world, only feeling lost in your imagination.” Others are oblique in attempted connections between text and art. How does a picture of a pale-skinned, black-haired child on a bridge in the rain evoke “first moments that will dance with you”? But the image of a child with pink skin and brown hair scaling a wall as text reads “there will be injustice that will challenge you, and it will surprise you how brave you can be” is clearer.
There’s always tomorrow. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-99437-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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