This feels far more like a parable for adults than a picture book for children, who may also miss the elegance of the New...
The big city is clearly New York, but it’s a grayed and sepia city sometime in the late 1940s, judging from the cars and clothing.
Elliot is a small, polka-dot elephant who loves his city even though it is hard for him to catch a cab or even open a door. (And he does the dishes by sitting in the sink with them.) He’s too little to be seen when he tries to buy his favorite treat, a cupcake, and that makes him sad. But he sees a tiny, very hungry mouse trying desperately to scale a trash bin for scraps. He manages to help get Mouse something to eat, and lo! He feels “like the tallest elephant in the world!” With Mouse’s help, the next day he gets that cupcake. The last image peers through Elliot’s window to find him and Mouse sharing it. The Flatiron Building, brownstone steps and the Empire State Building are clearly recognizable, giving the story Big Apple authenticity. The art has its own meticulous beauty, but the story is more saccharine than sweet—rather like too much frosting on a cupcake. The endpapers are a lush repetitive pattern of variegated cupcakes, with cameos by Elliot and Mouse.
This feels far more like a parable for adults than a picture book for children, who may also miss the elegance of the New York City images in their dark, soft palette. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9825-9
Page Count: 42
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
A hilarious autumnal comedy of errors.
A confused squirrel overreacts to the falling autumn leaves.
Relaxing on a tree branch, Squirrel admires the red, gold, and orange leaves. Suddenly Squirrel screams, “One of my leaves is…MISSING!” Searching for the leaf, Squirrel tells Bird, “Someone stole my leaf!” Spying Mouse sailing in a leaf boat, Squirrel asks if Mouse stole the leaf. Mouse calmly replies in the negative. Bird reminds Squirrel it’s “perfectly normal to lose a leaf or two at this time of year.” Next morning Squirrel panics again, shrieking, “MORE LEAVES HAVE BEEN STOLEN!” Noticing Woodpecker arranging colorful leaves, Squirrel queries, “Are those my leaves?” Woodpecker tells Squirrel, “No.” Again, Bird assures Squirrel that no one’s taking the leaves and that the same thing happened last year, then encourages Squirrel to relax. Too wired to relax despite some yoga and a bath, the next day Squirrel cries “DISASTER” at the sight of bare branches. Frantic now, Squirrel becomes suspicious upon discovering Bird decorating with multicolored leaves. Is Bird the culprit? In response, Bird shows Squirrel the real Leaf Thief: the wind. Squirrel’s wildly dramatic, misguided, and hyperpossessive reaction to a routine seasonal event becomes a rib-tickling farce through clever use of varying type sizes and weights emphasizing his absurd verbal pronouncements as well as exaggerated, comic facial expressions and body language. Bold colors, arresting perspectives, and intense close-ups enhance Squirrel’s histrionics. Endnotes explain the science behind the phenomenon.
A hilarious autumnal comedy of errors. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-3520-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
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)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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