A young girl plants a garden in a deceptively unpretentious story about making the best of what you have. At the end of May, Tiffany and her mother move to a trailer right in the middle of a lonely field. Mom has a part-time job and Tiffany stays home alone with strict orders not to go outside. One evening, while taking out the garbage she sees some green shoots near the trash can. She replants them along the driveway, hoping for trees or flowers. A friendly postman, Bob, squashes that hope, telling her that they are melons, tomatoes, and potatoes, but brings her a little tray of ``leftover'' marigolds, pansies, and petunias to dress up her garden. At the end of the summer, Tiffany, her mother, and Bob celebrate the first harvest with B.L.T.s. There's nothing showy about Perkin's first children's book. The watercolor illustrations exude straightforward middle America, underplaying the trailer's boxy shape and the flat expanse of land on which it sits. The story unfolds without flourishes. Yet it is a book to read, share, and treasure, both for its gentle, satisfying lessons and the way it doesn't insist on them. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-688-13687-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
A sweet iteration of the “Big Bad Wolf Mellows Out” theme. Here, an old wolf does some soul searching and then learns to like vegetable stew after a half-frozen lamb appears on his doorstep, falls asleep in his arms, then wakes to give him a kiss. “I can’t eat a lamb who needs me! I might get heartburn!” he concludes. Clad in striped leggings and a sleeveless pullover decorated with bands of evergreens, the wolf comes across as anything but dangerous, and the lamb looks like a human child in a fleecy overcoat. No dreams are likely to be disturbed by this book, but hardened members of the Oshkosh set might prefer the more credible predators and sense of threat in John Rocco’s Wolf! Wolf! (March 2007) or Delphine Perrot’s Big Bad Wolf and Me (2006). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-58925-067-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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