With the glut of sleepy-time stories out there, this offering does not bring much new to the bedside table
Going to bed doesn’t rank high on most children’s lists of favorite activities, and Janni and Dockray’s attempt to transform the nighttime routine into a rollicking good time is something of a snooze.
Aided by their parents, a brother and sister end their bath and go through the steps of drying off, putting on their jammies, brushing hair and teeth and so on, until they go to sleep. The text is characterized by forced, rhyming verse that will likely leave parents stumbling to read it aloud—for example, “Don’t you know, takes two to untangle— / Mom’ll dance from any angle,” and “Dad is callin’, ‘Little folks-a. / Time to do the p.j. polka!’ ” Equally undistinguished art awkwardly eschews rules of anatomic proportionality and fails to settle in a particular style: Pictures are sketchy and loose in some elements and more controlled and representational in others, resulting in uneven execution. As the book ends, the siblings share the same bed even though the text has them “[s]nuggled close inside [their] beds.” This final misstep provokes confusion in an already flawed overall package.
With the glut of sleepy-time stories out there, this offering does not bring much new to the bedside table . (Picture book. 1-4)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-374-33680-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Perfect for Valentine’s Day, but the syrupy sweetness will cloy after the holiday.
Animal parents declare their love for their offspring in alphabetical order.
Each page displays an enormous capital letter, one line of verse with the keyword capitalized, and a loving nonhuman parent gazing adoringly at their baby. “A is for Always. I always love you more. / B is for Butterfly kisses. It’s you that I adore.” While not named or labelled as such, the A is also for an alligator and its hatchling and B is for a butterfly and a butterfly child (not a caterpillar—biology is not the aim of this title) interacting in some way with the said letter. For E there are an elephant and a calf; U features a unicorn and foal; and X, keyed to the last letter of the animal’s name, corresponds to a fox and three pups. The final double-page spread shows all the featured creatures and their babies as the last line declares: “Baby, I love you from A to Z!” The verse is standard fare and appropriately sentimental. The art is cartoony-cute and populated by suitably loving critters on solid backgrounds. Hearts accent each scene, but the theme of the project is never in any doubt.
Perfect for Valentine’s Day, but the syrupy sweetness will cloy after the holiday. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-2095-6
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
Not a great choice for the youngest dinosaur lovers.
A board-book ode to parental love as old as the dinosaurs.
A line of text on the left of each spread reads like a dinosaur-themed valentine that a third grader might choose, with punishingly punny wordplay that incorporates dinosaur-related words. On the facing page a dinosaur pair—a baby and an adult—gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes against whimsical, pastel-hued prehistoric-ish backgrounds. In smaller print, in all caps, at the bottom of the left page is the scientific name for the dinosaur referenced by the text and picture followed by a helpful phonetic pronunciation guide. White-outlined footprints appear next to their names, though the white is sometimes difficult to see against the pastel pages. Ten of the best-known dinosaurs are included. Twisting the dinosaur names to fit the loving sentiments succeeds some of the time but more often results in tortured text, well beyond the understanding of the board book audience. The line accompanying two hugging velociraptors, for instance, is just confusing: “Wrap-TOR arms around me, / with you I’ll always stay.” Others are just plain clumsy: “I-wanna-GUANODON you kisses, / I truly just adore you.” Very young children, even those fascinated by dinosaurs, will not get it. Older dinosaur fans will be put off by the babyish format.
Not a great choice for the youngest dinosaur lovers. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-2295-0
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
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