This deconstructed lesson in plant regeneration, composting and life cycles will reach apple-eating readers of many ages
Primitive-looking cut-paper illustrations depict an apple’s travels from tree to kitchen to backpack to picnic and eventually into soil, where it takes root as a new seedling.
Run your fingers across this satisfyingly square book’s cover and feel the subtle, smooth outlines of a ripe apple and simple letters. You’ll immediately sense the solid, soothing storytelling at work inside, achieved through astute manipulations of paper. McClure’s masterful cut-paper pictures appear more chunky and primitive here than in other works (To Market, to Market, 2011, etc.), appropriate in a book about plant processes as old as the Earth. Solitary verbs centered on white left-hand pages definitively describe the apple’s journey. Their red, all-uppercase, hand-drawn block lettering compliments rustic black-and-white pictures that look a lot like whittled woodblock prints. Beginning readers can latch onto these firm words, point at their hefty letters and discern sounds and meanings. Older readers will appreciate McClure’s use of a velvety, Valentine red to highlight the apple; these isolated instances of color pull children into each leg of a small odyssey, making a little apple’s peregrinations seem deserving of acute attention. Backmatter includes “The Life Cycle of an Apple Tree” and “Composting,” described in simple language that manages to be both sophisticated and conversational. Four panels capturing the four seasons sit on the opposite page: a summation of an apple’s year in pictures and an assured ending.
This deconstructed lesson in plant regeneration, composting and life cycles will reach apple-eating readers of many ages . (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0378-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK REVIEW
A bit predictable but pleasantly illustrated.
Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault’s classic alphabet book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989) gets the Halloween treatment.
Chung follows the original formula to the letter. In alphabetical order, each letter climbs to the top of a tree. They are knocked back to the ground in a jumble before climbing up in sequence again. In homage to the spooky holiday theme, they scale a “creaky old tree,” and a ghostly jump scare causes the pileup. The chunky, colorful art is instantly recognizable. The charmingly costumed letters (“H swings a tail. / I wears a patch. J and K don / bows that don’t match”) are set against a dark backdrop, framed by pages with orange or purple borders. The spreads feature spiderwebs and jack-o’-lanterns. The familiar rhyme cadence is marred by the occasional clunky or awkward phrase; in particular, the adapted refrain of “Chicka chicka tricka treat” offers tongue-twisting fun, but it’s repeatedly followed by the disappointing half-rhyme “Everybody sneaka sneak.” Even this odd construction feels shoehorned into place, since “sneaking” makes little sense when every character in the book is climbing together. The final line of the book ends on a more satisfying note, with “Everybody—time to eat!”
A bit predictable but pleasantly illustrated. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781665954785
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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
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