Perfect for Halloween storytimes—or any time at all.
A pair of brothers encounter a late-night terror in Keres’ spooky children’s tale.
This isn’t a picture book—not exactly. The narrator warns the audience that this story is “much too scary for PICTURES, so I plan to use WORDS.” While the words tell the story as text, they also, in Lin’s deft design, serve as illustrations. When the power goes out one stormy night, a scream wakes two brothers, who lie in bed, terrified. More unsettling noises follow, including creaks and cracks and thumps and growls. The presumed monster’s noises seem to fade, but then additional sounds make the boys curious enough to get over their fears and investigate (though they keep their blanket over their heads). When they reach the kitchen, the terror is undermined with a single comedic illustration that reveals all. (Some savvy readers may have guessed the identity of the culprit all along.) Mini-illustrations of each noise-causing event follow, laid out like a treasure map. The gorgeous use of words and shapes—the word door appears against a door’s outline, for example, and the word covers has a blanket over it—gives readers’ imaginations a chance to run wild. A kids’ picture book without traditional illustrations hasn’t been this much fun since B.J. Novak’s excellent The Book With No Pictures (2014)—Keres and Lin have created a joyfully creepy companion.
Perfect for Halloween storytimes—or any time at all.Pub Date: May 14, 2022
ISBN: 9798985911244
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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