A sweetly humorous story for the friendship shelf.
Beekeeper Beatrice, a bear, and apple-grower Abel, a mouse, are best friends and neighbors.
It seems to be a perfect match. In the spring, Bea’s bees pollinate Abel’s trees, gathering nectar to make their honey. In summer and fall, each animal helps the other with the harvest, and all winter long they eat “crispy toast with apple butter” and sip “warm tea with honey” together. Their symbiosis is threatened when, one spring day, Abel startles a bee and is stung. Bea mistakes Abel’s howls of pain for laughter and joins in; hurt, Abel yells, inadvertently starting an exchange of insults: “Pie Face!” "Fuzz Brain!" In a snit, Abel erects a “no bees allowed” sign. (The bees ignore it.) Bea builds a fence. (The bees ignore it.) Furiously, the former friends pile high a heap of discarded items (including, in Gómez’s colorful, matte illustrations, a tennis racket, a bird cage, and a French horn). “And you know what the bees did.” When the pile of rubbish collapses on Bea, Abel forgets his pique and digs her out, and the friendship is restored. The pleasure in Horowitz’s story comes from its rhythmic, patterned text, which consciously reflects the reciprocal relationship between bees and trees, and its gentle understanding of how a little misunderstanding can blow up into a big rift.
A sweetly humorous story for the friendship shelf. (recipe) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-64521-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
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Still, preschoolers will likely savor this mouthwatering treatment of a subject that looms large in many early school...
The familiar theme of the challenges facing a new kid in town is given an original treatment by photographer Border in this book of photos of three-dimensional objects in a simple modeled landscape.
Peanut Butter is represented by a slice of white bread spread with the popular condiment. The other characters in the story—a hamburger with a pair of hot dogs in tow, a bowl of alphabet soup, a meatball jumping a rope of spaghetti, a carton of French fries and a pink cupcake—are represented by skillfully crafted models of these foods, anthropomorphized using simple wire construction. Rejected by each character in turn in his search for playmates, Peanut Butter discovers in the end that Jelly is his true match (not Cupcake, as the title suggests), perhaps because she is the only one who looks like him, being a slice of white bread spread with jelly. The friendly foods end up happily playing soccer together. Some parents may have trouble with the unabashedly happy depiction of carbs and American junk food (no carrots or celery sticks in this landscape), and others may find themselves troubled by the implication that friendship across difference is impossible.
Still, preschoolers will likely savor this mouthwatering treatment of a subject that looms large in many early school experiences. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: July 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-16773-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
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