Waste no time in adding this gem to the storytime shelf.
Animal friends pull together in another collaboration from the Steads.
A disruption in routine prompts a worried group of animals to work together, just as the zoo animals rallied together when Amos McGee fell ill in the Steads’ first joint picture book, A Sick Day for Amos McGee (2010). As in that Caldecott-winning title, Philip Stead’s artful text employs repetition and just-right word choices to result in a pleasing aurality. A mule, a milk cow, and a miniature horse wonder why the farmer hasn’t arisen yet and then decide to venture forth to awaken her. Leaving the barn is daunting; as Milk Cow says, “We will have to find courage.” Erin Stead’s illustration style closely resembles that which she employed in Sick Day, though the palette here is attuned to the darkness of pre-dawn hours, ultimately giving way to the warmth of the sunrise. Before that happy ending, a whimsical reference to a “sleeping giant” is accompanied by a picture of enormous stocking feet, toes pointing to the sky, which offers a visual echo of Amos’ feet poking out of his bedclothes as he sleeps. And yet, this is a farm setting, not a zoo, and the light-skinned farmer is a woman, not a man. The plot is also slightly more complex, with dream references that may prompt discussion about what happens in the reality of the story world and what is all a dream. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Waste no time in adding this gem to the storytime shelf. (Picture book. 2-7)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4428-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
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PERSPECTIVES
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
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
Safe to creep on by.
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)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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