These multiple, small accessories make it inappropriate for the typical board-book audience or for library circulation, but...
Youngsters can mix and match detachable mustaches onto simple black-and-white face icons.
A large pocket holds three paperboard sheets of 12 mustaches in total, which can be detached from the perforated pages. Mustaches of opposite qualities are paired on each page spread: “Moustache UP and moustache DOWN. / Which ’stache covers up a frown?” The left-hand side of each spread has die-cut notches where the tabs protruding from the top of each moustache can be inserted over an illustration of said moustache. Included on this side of the spread is a subtly comic, knowingly retro cartoon of a man sporting one of the mustaches. The right-hand page holds a full-page cartoon face with one notch so the mustache of choice can be inserted. The verse and art seem to point to a correct mustache for each face, but youngsters will likely enjoy experimenting with various facial-hair arrangements. Some of the interchangeable mustaches, the backs of which sport a descriptive word (straight, curly, smooth, rough, etc.) to help with matching, are sturdier than others, and a couple of the thinner ones will be easily torn and the smaller ones easily lost.
These multiple, small accessories make it inappropriate for the typical board-book audience or for library circulation, but this offering will likely appeal to readers who appreciate a quirky and stylized design aesthetic and books with interactive features. (Board book. 3-5)Pub Date: July 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7526-7
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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