A quirky story of a plucky mother-daughter pair that reads like a fable missing its moral.
Paulette is a “precious tornado” whose mother loves her—even when she makes a mess at the market.
Paulette’s mother’s mantra? “Everything is fine!” She mitigates every disaster by paying for items that Paulette’s damaged and doling out excuses. When Paulette gets too close to an herbalist’s magic potion—ignoring the “No Touching” sign—nothing seems amiss at first, but the next morning Paulette is missing. Apparently, Paulette’s mother was so exhausted the night before that she slurped Paulette into her belly along with her spaghetti. As Paulette’s mother searches frantically for her daughter, she encounters many other naughty children, all deemed “perfect” by their loving parents. Suddenly ravenous, she devours a long twirling rope of spaghetti given to her by the herbalist; Paulette uses the strand of spaghetti to climb up and out. The setup may lead some to expect a cautionary tale with a clear takeaway; such readers will be disappointed by the meandering narrative. Reunited, the pair breeze into town, “a whirlwind of noodles and mayhem,” evidently having learned no lessons from their ordeal (though they warn a curious tot to stay away from the herbalist’s wagon). Eye-catching, ethereal illustrations in pastel tones with saturated pops of neon are spattered with marbling ink, making for chaotic scenes that are hard to follow. Paulette and her mother present white with golden curls; other characters are diverse.
A quirky story of a plucky mother-daughter pair that reads like a fable missing its moral. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780063295827
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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