Seek out more successful funny tales of fathers and sons, such as Ethan Long’s My Dad, My Hero (2010) and Liz Rosenberg’s...
In this average offering, a boy, his dad and their small dog spend a day at the beach.
Morgan and Kwaymullina’s spare text recounts the many things they contend with and encounter. Dad is fearlessly brave (but more often clueless to the danger) as he survives turning his back on a colossal ocean wave, swimming in a sea full of jellyfish and threatening a couple of menacing sharks. Sunny blues and yellows dominate the palette. Ottley’s illustrations provide the real story as he plays with perspective and exaggerates scale to accentuate the cartoonish tone. On one spread, dad’s comically oversized foot ably steps over super-sharp thornlike shells, and on another a villainous crab with an impossibly huge claw attempts to steal lunch. The unlikely creatures that dad seems to have a true fear of are the ones that the boy enthusiastically chases away. Preschool readers will identify with the fun of scaring off squawking seagulls and enjoy the boy’s role as hero. A troubling oddity, though—the father’s physical characteristics seem altered on the next-to-the-last spread. Through most of the book, he is decidedly dark-skinned and looks vaguely aboriginal (this is an Australian import); in that penultimate picture, his skin tone appears lighter, and the facial features are different.
Seek out more successful funny tales of fathers and sons, such as Ethan Long’s My Dad, My Hero (2010) and Liz Rosenberg’s Tyrannosaurus Dad, illustrated by Matthew Myers (2010) . (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-921541-81-0
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Little Hare/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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