A good story, perfect for bird lovers and likely to entice the uninitiated.
A young girl learns how to bird-watch from her neighbor, then teaches her family.
Ruby, a black girl with afro puffs and a missing front tooth, likes to spice things up when it’s “too quiet” at home. When her neighbor, Eva, hears Ruby making noise, she invites Ruby to the park—Central Park. When they get to the woods there, Eva is quiet, looking up, using binoculars, frozen—but smiling. Ruby starts singing again, and a frustrated Eva sits her down to tell her about the golden-winged warbler she was looking at, a bird she’d only seen back home in Costa Rica. They try to find him again, staying quiet and paying attention. On Sunday, Ruby begs her family to go to Central Park during their regular family time. She leads them into the woods and shows them how to watch, quiet and still. Her efforts are rewarded when she sees a warbler. Dávila’s illustrations, done with the abundant green and brown of nature and splashes of colorful clothing against ample white space, depict caring relationships and communities. With a bird on each spread and a key in the back, it serves as a Where’s Waldo–type introduction to birding guides, one readers can return to again and again. A bird poster and an endnote addressed to children round out the package.
A good story, perfect for bird lovers and likely to entice the uninitiated. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-943645-33-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Cornell Lab Publishing Group
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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