Affirming and uplifting.
Oliver, a neurodivergent child introduced in Hunt’s novel Fish in a Tree (2015), makes his picture-book debut.
Oliver feels like “a dragon in a paper house.” While his classmates work quietly, he fidgets and involuntarily makes noises. His brain “blazes.” He imagines his pencil as a rocket, and his mind fills with questions: Could a pencil rocket reach Saturn’s rings? Shay, the class bully, calls him “weird” and “lazy,” unlike “the rest of us”—but the things Oliver says to himself hurt even more. At recess, Oliver makes a wish: “Please…please make me more like the rest of them.” Fortunately, not everyone is like Shay. Jada’s impressed by Oliver’s knowledge of ants, and Albert reminds him that famous inventors, scientists, and artists persisted despite being mocked: “Just imagine the things we wouldn’t have without all of your astonishing brains!” Cheered, Oliver dubs Jada and Albert his “colony”: “In an ant colony, everyone matters.” Now he’s proud to be a dragon in a paper house: “Isn’t it good to have a little fire inside?” Though the dialogue is somewhat heavy-handed, readers, especially those with learning differences, will appreciate the message that, like a tree with colorful autumn leaves, the world is “most beautiful” when people are all different. Energetic cartoon illustrations cleverly convey Oliver’s vivid imagination as well as his emotions. Most characters, including Oliver, have light skin; Jada is brown-skinned.
Affirming and uplifting. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9781524739683
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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