OK, if aptly titled.
Robot buddies trash the house together and then clean up after themselves.
After charging up their batteries, two colorful robots initiate their play sequence and go to town “squishing,” “crashing,” “twirling,” and “splatting” anything in their paths. The artwork is eye-catching and the sound effects fun to read aloud with children, but the mayhem level is unregulated by any moral or practical concern. The narrative is thin. What the robots are squishing and splatting is never specified, and whether or not they should be doing so also goes unaddressed. Commentary is relegated to the “We LOVE squishing” level. Any complexity in the text arises from the introduction of robot and computer terminology: “Splatting TICKLES our GIGGLEBYTES,” and “Sensors indicate making a mess is FUN!!” Once mired in the mess they’ve created, the two friends scan their surroundings, process the data, and identify a solution, which is, of course, to clean up their mess. That lesson in problem-solving may be the most useful moment in the book. The clean-up scenes involve wiping, slurping with vacuum hoses, squirting suds, and scrubbing until the mess is “terminated.” The message that one should clean up after making a mess is a good one. Unfortunately, the idea of toddlers smearing goo and squirting suds sounds as potentially disastrous as all the squishing and splatting that created the problem in the first place.
OK, if aptly titled. (Board book. 18 mos.-4)Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-0567-7
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The slightly didactic message of tolerance and inclusiveness is made palatable by the gardening analogy, and this book will...
This attractive picture book for the very young from accomplished illustrator and debut author Gillingham explores a thoughtful analogy between gardening and friendship.
The parallels between growing things and making new friends are illustrated with simple instructions, matched with Gillingham’s pastel-shaded woodcut-and-collaged illustrations. Just like seeds and plants, friendships need to be sown, tended and cultivated. “A friend needs water… / warm sunshine… // and space to bloom.” It is a two-way process: “To grow a friend, talk / and listen”; “Good friends stand by each other in rain / or shine.” With friendships, as with flowers, things can go wrong: “Sometimes a friend bugs you.” (Bugs literally buzz around their heads on a page where the friends are wrestling for control of a potted plant.) But “[t]o grow a friend, / chase the bugs away together!” The girl finds a solution to their argument by giving the boy a ride in a wheelbarrow. A subtly diverse selection of kids and adults are portrayed enjoying one another’s company and working together to cultivate their gardens. Children, flowers, birds, trees and seasons are skillfully illustrated using multicolored patterns and shapes that will have considerable visual appeal for preschoolers.
The slightly didactic message of tolerance and inclusiveness is made palatable by the gardening analogy, and this book will encourage young friendships to bloom. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-37669-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
A gentle outing for children who are ready for stories of everyday life rather than just objects to name.
A brief rhyming board book for toddlers.
Spurr's earlier board books (In the Garden and At the Beach, both 2012; In the Woods, 2013) featured an adventuresome little boy. Her new slice-of-life story stars an equally joyful little girl who takes pleasure in flying a new kite while not venturing far off the walkway. Oliphant's expressive and light-filled watercolors clearly depict the child's emotions—eager excitement on the way to the park, delight at the kite's flight in the wind, shock when the kite breaks free, dejection, and finally relief and amazement. The rhymes work, though uneven syllable counts in some stanzas interrupt the smooth flow of the verse. The illustrations depict the child with her mass of windblown curls, brown skin, and pronounced facial features as African-American. Her guardian (presumably her mother) is also brown-skinned. It is refreshing to see an African-American family settled comfortably in a suburban setting with single-family homes and a park where the family dog does not need to be leashed.
A gentle outing for children who are ready for stories of everyday life rather than just objects to name. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-56145-854-7
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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