Despite misgivings, it’s a sweet story centering on a bright, black birthday girl, and on that front it takes the cake.
Mitzi Tulane may be a preschool detective, but she is also a birthday girl.
She doesn’t know that yet, though. Her first clue is that she smells a new smell in the kitchen. Baby Kev doesn’t give her any help in figuring things out, and neither does Daddy. She finds him shaving in the bathroom, which is odd since it’s Sunday, and he usually stays “scratchy all weekend.” Undaunted, Mitzi continues to investigate, and she gets yet more clues when grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins arrive. They add to the matter-of-fact multiracial cast of characters—the extended family includes aunties and cousins with a range of skin tones and hair textures, while Mitzi, with brown skin and curly dark hair, appears black, and her fair-skinned parents and baby brother are white. Confusingly, relatives’ clothing doesn’t seem to remain the same from one spread to the next, so it’s hard to track their presence in different scenes as Mitzi solves the mystery that it is her birthday. (That eponymous smell from the kitchen? It’s her birthday cake.) It’s also a bit hard to believe that such a smart, inquisitive child would be unaware of her approaching fourth birthday when this is such a big deal to most kids.
Despite misgivings, it’s a sweet story centering on a bright, black birthday girl, and on that front it takes the cake. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-449-81915-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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