I LOVE YOU LIKE A PIG

Name: I LOVE YOU LIKE A PIG
Author: Mac Barnett
ISBN: 978-0-06-235483-9

by Mac Barnett ; illustrated by Greg Pizzoli ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 19, 2017

This may leave readers pondering the many forms that love can take, but when is that ever a misstep? (Picture book. 3-7)

bookshelf

Love doesn’t always make sense.

How do you love like a pig? You share a birthday cake or a bubble bath, of course. How could a window be lucky? It is, if it has a blueberry pie cooling on its sill. And how, just how, is a fossil funny? If you put it on your head! This nutty ode to affection has echoes of Ruth Krauss in its sensible absurdity. It begins by listing the many ways love makes the narrator (presumably the adult or child reading together on the title page) feel: “I’m happy like a monster. // I’m lucky like a window. // I’m smiling like a tuna. // Because I love you like a pig.” Then it dips into the antics of the loved one (“You’re crazy like raspberries”), followed by declarations of contentment (“I like you like a tree”). Each section ends with the titular phrase, punctuated by the resounding chorus, which extends across a double-page spread: “OINK / OINK / OINK / OINK.” Pizzoli’s digital illustrations keep up with Barnett’s wacky sensibilities at every turn. Ethnically diverse tots (and a pig, along with a few other critters) cavort merrily through the pages. Children will especially enjoy spotting the two mice that scamper throughout.

This may leave readers pondering the many forms that love can take, but when is that ever a misstep? (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-06-235483-9

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FIRST CAT IN SPACE AND THE WRATH OF THE PAPERCLIP
by Mac Barnett ; illustrated by Shawn Harris

- BOOK REVIEW
SANTA'S FIRST CHRISTMAS
by Mac Barnett ; illustrated by Sydney Smith

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FIRST CAT IN SPACE AND THE SOUP OF DOOM
by Mac Barnett ; illustrated by Shawn Harris

bookshelf

CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

bookshelf

A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

bookshelf

ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

bookshelf

Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)