Books about daring protagonists who indulge their wild sides are numerous—this one can be skipped.
Lana Lynn is an odd sheep.
Her friend Shawn suggests she nibble grass and nap, but Lana Lynn (say it fast) wants to stay up late and howl. In search of adventure one night, she finds a strange hairy blanket, illustrated in smudgy gray, with surprising features: pointy ears, bushy tail, long nose, sharp teeth….Donning it, she enters the “wild woods” and encounters a pack of wolves who invite her to run with them. Lana Lynn enjoys herself! At their insistence, she joins the wolves for dinner but is dismayed to find a squirrel, a rabbit (both as cute as can be), and Shawn (with an apple in his mouth) on the menu. The digital, cartoon-style art depicts Lana Lynn and Shawn against a hot-orange background staring at each other with desperately big, googly eyes. “I love sheep!” Lana Lynn exclaims as she grabs her friend and runs. Shawn and Lana Lynn are content to return to the meadow, where Lana Lynn now only feels an occasional need to howl like an “intrepid, new wolf.” This leaves the uncomfortable collision between fantasy and reality largely unresolved. Young critical thinkers concerned about the fate of the squirrel, the rabbit, and, potentially, other sheep victims may question Lana Lynn’s choices.
Books about daring protagonists who indulge their wild sides are numerous—this one can be skipped. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68263-050-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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