Rich illustrations and a rhyming text create a puzzle for each letter of the alphabet, inviting a young reader to guess what word the letter might represent. Warm-hearted and generous-spirited paintings provide visual answers. The answers are also found in a key at the end. Objects as American as Apples and Pie are utilized and the theme of Quilts sews it all together. A crazy-quilt pattern decorates the endpapers, each uppercase letter of the alphabet is framed as in the square of a quilt, and many of the illustrations are framed as well. With few exceptions, the objects are tangible, and within the experience of pre-schoolers. The few intangibles (Night, Yellow) are unexpected and therefore more difficult to guess. The oversized format and lush illustrations are strongly appealing; color in all of the paintings is rich and saturated. Painterly brush strokes add depth and elegance to the folksy style. Excellent book design features each letter and text in a way that is easy to see without interfering with the illustrations. The weakest element is the rhyming text. Although the clues are generally good, the rhymes are weakened by cliché. At worst, they suggest advertising copy, as for Apples: “Nature’s handpicked treat / Wholesome goodness to the core.” Some are simply confusing, as the tea Kettle “Captures the cold under its lid / And warms you through and through.” Nonetheless, the graphic appeal is so strong that youngsters in groups or on their own should be drawn to the pictures and to guessing the names of the objects. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-8234-1453-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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