Original and absorbing.
In this Swiss import, words come to life—literally—as a young boy squishes, stretches, and hurls them through the air.
Oscar digs up a chest filled with jumbled-up words. He pulls out fluorescent, straightens it out, then tosses it at a nearby hedgehog, who suddenly becomes awash in neon. And that’s just the beginning. He uses hairy to give an old oak tree a trendy new ’do, transforms a beetle into a hulking, “monstrous” creature (he quickly undoes that change with adorable), and, with help from lightweight, lifts a backhoe in the air using just one hand. After Oscar runs out of words, he turns to a neighbor who has her own stash of words. She teaches him that he can find words just about anywhere, as long as he’s observant: “Use them with care and you can make the world blossom.” With her encouragement, he does just that. This vocabulary-rich story is visually striking and quietly powerful. Full of unusual words like bulbous, tender-leafed, and velvety, it leaves readers with pages full of unnamed images ripe for the claiming. The illustrations are whimsical and playful while also making concrete something that is utterly abstract. Oscar’s world has an exaggerated, off-kilter feel; with the earthy palette and changing perspectives, the art is a strong match for the storytelling. Most characters are light-skinned.
Original and absorbing. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780735845602
Page Count: 48
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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
Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back.
With such short arms, how can Tiny T. Rex give a sad friend a hug?
Fleck goes for cute in the simple, minimally detailed illustrations, drawing the diminutive theropod with a chubby turquoise body and little nubs for limbs under a massive, squared-off head. Impelled by the sight of stegosaurian buddy Pointy looking glum, little Tiny sets out to attempt the seemingly impossible, a comforting hug. Having made the rounds seeking advice—the dino’s pea-green dad recommends math; purple, New Age aunt offers cucumber juice (“That is disgusting”); red mom tells him that it’s OK not to be able to hug (“You are tiny, but your heart is big!”), and blue and yellow older sibs suggest practice—Tiny takes up the last as the most immediately useful notion. Unfortunately, the “tree” the little reptile tries to hug turns out to be a pterodactyl’s leg. “Now I am falling,” Tiny notes in the consistently self-referential narrative. “I should not have let go.” Fortunately, Tiny lands on Pointy’s head, and the proclamation that though Rexes’ hugs may be tiny, “I will do my very best because you are my very best friend” proves just the mood-lightening ticket. “Thank you, Tiny. That was the biggest hug ever.” Young audiences always find the “clueless grown-ups” trope a knee-slapper, the overall tone never turns preachy, and Tiny’s instinctive kindness definitely puts him at (gentle) odds with the dinky dino star of Bob Shea’s Dinosaur Vs. series.
Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7033-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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