A sweet book, though it’s undermined by character choice.
A (gorilla) parent’s dream for a child.
First-person narration relates the joys and hopes a new parent feels in this offering from Cordell. “We looked upon you, impossible you, and we felt everything,” reads the text in an early spread, revealing heartfelt and earnest sentiments about parental love. This tone is undermined, however, by the painterly watercolor-and-ink illustrations of a semianthropomorphized gorilla family rather than a human family or even fully anthropomorphic animals. These gorillas live in furnished grass huts and use tools but go unclothed and walk on their knuckles. Are they gorillas in order to try to engage child readers with a text that is essentially about validating and representing parental love? Perhaps, but the juxtaposition is rather jarring. One gorilla parent is the text’s narrator/dreamer, and the dream envisions the child growing and changing, having triumphs and hardships. The child becomes a painter, and at the end of the dream, the parents stand in front of their small hut and wave goodbye as the child (now grown) leaves home with paintbrushes strapped to its back in something like a quiver. In waking life, the parents gaze at their infant in its crib and wonder “what will you dream?” and the book ends with a closing portrait of the family.
A sweet book, though it’s undermined by character choice. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-7340-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A heartwarming story about facing fears and acceptance.
A boy with wings learns to be himself and inspires others like him to soar, too.
Norman, a “perfectly normal” boy, never dreamed he might grow wings. Afraid of what his parents might say, he hides his new wings under a big, stuffy coat. Although the coat hides his wings from the world, Norman no longer finds joy in bathtime, playing at the park, swimming, or birthday parties. With the gentle encouragement of his parents, who see his sadness, Norman finds the courage to come out of hiding and soar. Percival (The Magic Looking Glass, 2017, etc.) depicts Norman with light skin and dark hair. Black-and-white illustrations show his father with dark skin and hair and his mother as white. The contrast of black-and-white illustrations with splashes of bright color complements the story’s theme. While Norman tries to be “normal,” the world and people around him look black and gray, but his coat stands out in yellow. Birds pop from the page in pink, green, and blue, emphasizing the joy and beauty of flying free. The final spread, full of bright color and multiracial children in flight, sets the mood for Norman’s realization on the last page that there is “no such thing as perfectly normal,” but he can be “perfectly Norman.”
A heartwarming story about facing fears and acceptance. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68119-785-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
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
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