Uneven visuals make this a marginal choice.
A fortuneteller’s daughter discovers a talent for meteorology.
Mira longs to tell fortunes like her mother, Madame Mirabella, who practices her craft in a caravan parked on a seaside boardwalk. Unfortunately, try as she might, she just hasn’t got the gift. But when her mother buys Mira a windsock and a pinwheel, the child realizes that they can help her predict the weather. She bones up on meteorology at the library, learning about barometers, anemometers, and more, then sets herself up as a weather forecaster on the boardwalk. Her accuracy is tested on a gorgeous sunny day when, after noticing the plummeting barometer, she calls a halt to a big surfing contest—just before a mammoth storm hits. Andrews’ debut folds meteorological information into a satisfying kid-finds-her-talent-and saves-the-day tale; readers will appreciate the dark-skinned girl’s expertise and the way adults listen to her. Painting digitally with a modern animation aesthetic, Marlin sets the story in a 1920s-era town, a choice that’s at odds with such details as a female lifeguard named Taylor and Mira’s recommendation that she “wear SPF 100”—not to mention the surfing contest. She festoons Mira’s mother with a hodgepodge of stereotypically exotic garb, even when she’s off duty, and dresses the rest of her fairly diverse cast in flapper-era garb. The amusement-pier backdrop adds a festive touch.
Uneven visuals make this a marginal choice. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4549-1698-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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