This lyrical picture book will draw readers under its soft wing, lulling children with its velveteen artwork and assured...
A narrator whispers sweet assurances of belonging in the ear of a beloved, invoking animals’ analogous habitats and hollows to bring the comforting ascriptions powerfully home.
Watercolor illustrations utilize every gradation of gray to achieve astonishing, soft specificity and alternatively show human houses and animal homes in the natural world. Mellow reds, greens, and yellows crop up here and there, serving as keen testaments to the power of placement in the scenes they depict. Lovingly constructed, reliable rhymes, with pleasing pendular swings, might cause listeners to hug themselves tightly and smile. “And the trees belong in the wild wood / and the deer belong in their shade, / and the birds belong so safe and good / and warm in the nests they’ve made.” Animals enjoy habitations all their own, sublime places described with crystalline clarity: streams skirted with cattails, red and gold desert rocks, canyons blanketed with sage, dune grasses, and a stone wall surrounded by clover. Cursive script (intrinsically personal and unique) accompanies lines directed at a listening human audience and images of human houses. One could easily improvise a quick melody and sing these words as a lullaby.
This lyrical picture book will draw readers under its soft wing, lulling children with its velveteen artwork and assured affirmations of each creature’s special nook in such a spectacularly varied world. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: June 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-938298-99-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
A nice but not requisite purchase.
A retelling of the classic fairy tale in board-book format and with a Mexican setting.
Though simplified for a younger audience, the text still relates the well-known tale: mean-spirited stepmother, spoiled stepsisters, overworked Cinderella, fairy godmother, glass slipper, charming prince, and, of course, happily-ever-after. What gives this book its flavor is the artwork. Within its Mexican setting, the characters are olive-skinned and dark-haired. Cultural references abound, as when a messenger comes carrying a banner announcing a “FIESTA” in beautiful papel picado. Cinderella is the picture of beauty, with her hair up in ribbons and flowers and her typically Mexican many-layered white dress. The companion volume, Snow White, set in Japan and illustrated by Misa Saburi, follows the same format. The simplified text tells the story of the beautiful princess sent to the forest by her wicked stepmother to be “done away with,” the dwarves that take her in, and, eventually, the happily-ever-after ending. Here too, what gives the book its flavor is the artwork. The characters wear traditional clothing, and the dwarves’ house has the requisite shoji screens, tatami mats and cherry blossoms in the garden. The puzzling question is, why the board-book presentation? Though the text is simplified, it’s still beyond the board-book audience, and the illustrations deserve full-size books.
A nice but not requisite purchase. (Board book/fairy tale. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7915-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tender bedtime tale set in a too-seldom-seen northern world.
A quiet book for putting young children to bed in a state of snowy wonder.
The magic of the north comes alive in a picture book featuring Inuit characters. In the sky at nighttime, snow falls fast. / … / In the sky at nighttime, a raven roosts atop a tall building. / … / In the sky at nighttime, a mother’s delicate song to her child arises like a gentle breeze.” With the repetition of the simple, titular refrain, the author envisions what happens in a small town at night: Young children see their breath in the cold; a hunter returns on his snowmobile; the stars dazzle in the night sky. A young mother rocks her baby to sleep with a song and puts the tot down with a trio of stuffed animals: hare, polar bear, seal. The picture book evokes a feeling of peace as the street lamps, northern lights, and moon illuminate the snow. The illustrations are noteworthy for the way they meld the old world with what it looks like to be a modern Indigenous person: A sled dog and fur-lined parkas combine easily with the frame houses, a pickup truck, power lines, and mobile-hung crib. By introducing Indigenous characters in an unremarkably familiar setting, the book reaches children who don’t always see themselves in an everyday context.
A tender bedtime tale set in a too-seldom-seen northern world. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77227-238-3
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Inhabit Media
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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