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OSCAR SEEKS A FRIEND

Name: OSCAR SEEKS A FRIEND
Author: Pawel Pawlak
ISBN: 978-1-911373-79-7

by Pawel Pawlak ; illustrated by Pawel Pawlak ; translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 3, 2019

Color and composition combine to beautifully express friendship and the wonders of the world.

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“It’s hard for a small, ugly skeleton to make friends.”

Skeleton Oscar is sad when he loses a tooth—he looks “so dreadful” without it—but at least he has his skeleton dog, Tag, to play with. One day, he sees a little girl burying a tooth; she seems to be a possible friend. When she sees Oscar’s missing tooth, she laughs out loud and offers him the tooth she is about to bury. A moment later, she takes him by the hand, and their adventure begins. The minimal text lets the collaged pictures tell the story. Oscar and the girl look at a rainbow and smell the scent of wet grass and visit her house, where they meet her ma. They also frolic at the seaside and share their biggest secrets. Oscar takes her by the hand to return the favor. He takes her to his favorite places: the park and the library and up a tree to look for sleeping butterflies. Readers will note that the backgrounds of her world are vivid and bright while his are black with hints of brown and warm reds. Both are richly textured and fanciful, the gutter serving as permeable demarcation between worlds. At day’s end, Oscar gives her back the tooth; what he’s found is much more valuable.

Color and composition combine to beautifully express friendship and the wonders of the world. (Picture book. 3-12)

Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-911373-79-7

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Lantana

Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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LOVE FROM THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2015

Safe to creep on by.

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Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.

In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.

Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)