An absorbing, richly detailed, and charming activity book.
Seeley’s illustrated children’s book offers seek-and-find scenes, plus brainteasers.
Two cuddly bears present 12 shadowbox display cases filled with all manner of images organized around various themes, like colors, numbers, shapes, letters, and several kinds of animals. Accompanying each shadowbox is a verse about the subject; e.g., “every mammal has lungs to breathe air,” with examples of what to look for. The margins list all the items to be found, sometimes including helpful hints, like the colors of a coral snake. The margins also contain brainteasers, such as asking readers to name the four basic food groups, and answers are listed in a key. Kids can use the provided shadowbox frames, which list the various objects, and keep track of the ones they’ve found. Seeley, who has written and/or illustrated many children’s books, offers cheerfully whimsical pictures; many inanimate objects (balloons, lollipops, sunflowers) sport smiling faces. The book’s animals are especially appealing, rendered with realism and affection. Though the pages abound with detail, each item pops thanks to Seeley’s skillful coloring and shading. Beyond that, kids can soak up a fair amount of knowledge about many subjects.
An absorbing, richly detailed, and charming activity book.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73304-688-6
Page Count: 36
Publisher: All About Kids
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lackluster collection of verse enlivened by a few bright spots.
Poems on various topics by the actor/screenwriter and his kids.
In collaboration with his now-grown children—particularly daughter Erin, who adds gently humorous vignettes and spot art to each entry—Bob Odenkirk, best known for his roles in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, dishes up a poetic hodgepodge that is notably loose jointed in the meter and rhyme departments. The story also too often veers from child-friendly subjects (bedtime-delaying tactics, sympathy for a dog with the zoomies) to writerly whines (“The be-all and end-all of perfection in scribbling, / no matter and no mind to any critical quibbling”). Some of the less-than-compelling lines describe how a “plane ride is an irony / with a strange and wondrous duplicity.” A few gems are buried in the bunch, however, like the comforting words offered to a bedroom monster and a frightened invisible friend, not to mention an invitation from little Willy Whimble, who lives in a tuna can but has a heart as “big as can be. / Come inside, / stay for dinner. / I’ll roast us a pea!” They’re hard to find, though. Notwithstanding nods to Calef Brown, Shel Silverstein, and other gifted wordsmiths in the acknowledgments, the wordplay in general is as artificial as much of the writing: “I scratched, then I scrutched / and skrappled away, / scritching my itch with great / pan-a-ché…” Human figures are light-skinned throughout.
A lackluster collection of verse enlivened by a few bright spots. (Poetry. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780316438506
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Iffy art cramps this 25th-anniversary reissue of the joyful title poem from Greenfield’s first collection (1978), illustrated by the Dillons. As timeless as ever, the poem celebrates everything a child loves, from kissing Mama’s warm, soft arm to listening to a cousin from the South, “ ’cause every word he says / just kind of slides out of his mouth.” “I love a lot of things / a whole lot of things,” the narrator concludes, “And honey, / I love ME, too.” The African-American child in the pictures sports an updated hairstyle and a big, infectious grin—but even younger viewers will notice that the spray of cool water that supposedly “stings my stomach” isn’t aimed there, and that a comforter on the child’s bed changes patterns between pages. More problematic, though, is a dropped doll that suddenly acquires a horrified expression that makes it look disturbingly like a live baby, and the cutesy winged fairy that hovers over the sleeping child in the final scene. The poem deserves better. (Picture book/poetry. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-009123-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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